


Further Omens of a Wonderous and Unusual Nature

by AgentStannerShipper



Series: To Build a Family in Ineffable Circumstances [4]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Family Dynamics, Fluff, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, and they love their kids so much, magical children, parenting, theyre doing their best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-08-12 02:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20124418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: Seven miracles. Two new parents. Full chorus of supporting friends and family. Parenthood isn't always easy, but Crowley and Aziraphale are going to be just fine.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's back! Updates should come on Mondays, and I'm going to do my very best to keep up with them until the story is done. Thank you guys for all your lovely comments, and I hope you enjoy this one as much as the last.

There were seven of them. Seven, in Biblical terms, is a rather important number. There are seven heavenly virtues, balanced by seven deadly sins. Creation itself took place over seven days. The number is referenced several times throughout the Bible – although most angels would advise humans to take the Bible with a grain of salt, owing to all the mistranslations and rewritings[1] – and it is a number that indicates completeness in the fullest sense.

It is also rather a large number of children to have, even if the parents are an angel and a demon. The upside of being nonhuman and dealing with seven infants who require both food and sleep is that the parents require neither, which eliminates two of the biggest inconveniences that new parents often face. The downside is that they still only have four hands. For Crowley and Aziraphale, this would have been true regardless of whether they were in their human form or their truest metaphysical shape; in the latter, Aziraphale had four hands and Crowley had zero, which still averaged out the same as when they had two apiece.

The children were a week old. The colucumbra, as Aziraphale had dubbed them, were behaving roughly the same as human children at that age, although admittedly Aziraphale did not have much of a frame of reference. They slept a lot, and woke up every few hours to be fed, and liked to be held whenever possible. The last bit applied especially to Ephraim, who after a week had accepted that they could not be held at all times without crying, but also to Phinehas, who was fond of batting at Crowley’s face and tugging at Aziraphale’s curls.

Aziraphale liked to read to them. There had been a brief debate between him and Crowley as to whether or not the Bible was appropriate reading material, which had concluded with the point that it was perhaps not the best idea to read to the children a book which discussed the unholiness of one of their fathers, and which blatantly rooted for a side that would, in all probability, want to do something horrible to them if they were discovered.

At the moment, Aziraphale had Ophelia tucked in the crook of one arm and Tolkien’s _The Fellowship of the Ring _in the opposite hand. He was in the middle of the passage introducing the council of Elrond when Crowley poked his head into the nursery.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but we’ve got company.”

Company also came in sevens; seven highly concerned friends, who had last seen Aziraphale pass out when labour pains overtook him – save Adam, who has last seen Aziraphale asleep after the birth – waited in the entry hall, snow dusting their hair and melting in puddles around their boots. Through the application of Brian’s baby shower gift – the slings, not the children’s books, which Aziraphale had tucked politely into a drawer in the nursery and not looked at again – they managed to bring down all seven children at once.

Brian looked delighted. Anathema looked caught between relief and curiosity. Newt and Wensleydale looked intrigued. Pepper still looked nervous. Adam and Damian did not resign themselves to looking, but greeted Crowley and Aziraphale cheerfully. Adam scooped Phinehas into his arms, and the baby instantly went for his mop of shaggy hair, while Damian graciously accepted the much better behaved Athaliah.

“They’re so small,” Damian said, and smiled at Aziraphale. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thank you, Damian.” Aziraphale smiled back, and gave in to Brian’s clamouring to hold a baby too. He reached initially for Ephraim, who put up such a fuss the moment Brian’s hand touched them that Aziraphale took the child back, and was instead given Percival, who gurgled peacefully.

“They look human,” Anathema commented. She had her arms folded across her chest, hesitant about touching, although Newt had no such reservations and allowed Crowley to pass him Ophelia. “I thought…I don’t know,” Anathema continued. “I thought they might be a little more…”

“Angelic?” Aziraphale suggested.

“Demonic?” Crowley added, with a touch more malice.

Anathema blushed. “Well…yes.”

“It’s not as if we look particularly inhuman,” Aziraphale pointed out. Crowley resisted the urge to reach for a pair of sunglasses. He didn’t have any on him; they were upstairs somewhere. He’d gotten used to not wearing them.

“Do they have wings?” Adam wanted to know. He’d turned Phinehas this way and that, aided by the child’s natural predisposition to squirm, and been disappointed. “I thought they’d have wings.”

“I suspect they do,” said Aziraphale, who hadn’t bothered to check. “It’s just that they haven’t manifested yet. They are only a week old, after all.”

“Their auras are unreal,” Anathema said. She’d finally given in to curiosity and was now holding Lysander, peering at the baby intently. “They’re so bright, so colourful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well, naturally,” said Crowley. “There’s never been anything like them before.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you could call them,” Adam said, brightening up. “I was thinking-“

“Actually, we’re calling them colucumbra,” Aziraphale interrupted him gently. “Sorry.”

“It’s a nice word,” said Newt. “What’s it mean?”

“It’s Latin. Light and shade together. I thought it was appropriate.”

“It certainly gives you an idea where they came from,” said Anathema, who was a little put out she hadn’t come up with it first. Adam didn’t say anything. It was a lot better than his suggestion, and he was glad Aziraphale had cut him off.

Crowley made a gesture towards the living room. “Why doesn’t everyone sit down? No sense standing when there’s a sofa around.”

They resettled in the living room. Aziraphale brought up the rear, apologizing to Pepper. “I’m terribly sorry, my dear,” he said. “I hope Elizabeth wasn’t too badly frightened.”

Pepper grimaced. “She had some questions. Mostly about Crowley. I didn’t really know how to explain, so I sort of…told her everything.”

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want to.”

Pepper shrugged, perching on the edge of the sofa. Aziraphale sat next to her. “She’s not speaking to me,” Pepper said softly. “I don’t know if she thinks it was a joke or if it was too much for her or what. But I haven’t heard from her since Christmas.”

Were it anyone but Pepper, Aziraphale might have embraced them. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll come back. You two seemed very good together.”

“Yeah, well.” Pepper shrugged. “Things don’t always work out.” She knocked Aziraphale’s knee gently. “I don’t blame you two, just so you know. I don’t know if that’s something you were worried about, but it’s not your fault.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” said Aziraphale, who had in fact been harbouring concerns along those lines. “If we weren’t-“

“Yeah, but you can’t help it.” She nudged him again, a little harder. “It’s just who you are. And I wouldn’t give up having you two in my life for anything. You’re fun. You come to more of my matches than my parents do.” That was true. Aziraphale had come to many of the early ones, before Pepper had met Elizabeth, although he’d decided privately that as proud as he was of the young woman for channelling her rage into productive avenues, roller derby was not for him. Crowley had come to some of the more recent matches, lurking in the background and grinning every time someone got shoved. He hadn’t ever spoken to Pepper on those occasions, but she’d known he was there.

Aziraphale accepted the explanation for what it was. Pepper was not one to express her affection blatantly, but Aziraphale understood the familial love beneath the words. He’d gotten quite good at understanding her and the rest of the Them over the years.

While Aziraphale and Pepper had been speaking, the other Them had been preoccupied with bothering Crowley. Bothering was perhaps not their intent, but it was the result, although Crowley put up with it graciously. They had a lot of questions about the children, what their abilities might be, the sort of thing that Aziraphale would be much better suited to answer. Crowley hadn’t managed to catch the angel’s eye, however, and had resorted to shrugging passively. He could feel Anathema’s stare boring into him, and he avoided looking at her. He hoped she wouldn’t ask him about the book.

Instead, he looked at Damian, who had been mostly quiet. Damian was cradling Athaliah with surprising tenderness for someone so large, and he was bouncing her with the semi-practiced ease of someone who has held a younger cousin with some frequency. It occurred to him that Damian had never seen him with his glasses off, save for the tail end of the pre-Christmas party, but he hadn’t seemed all that bothered by it. “Alright?” Crowley asked him. “You’ve been quiet.”

The chattering questions dropped off, and Damian looked up. He seemed surprised to be addressed. “I’m fine,” he said. “What about you?”

“Me?”

Damian nodded. His eyes flicked to Aziraphale and then back to Crowley. “I know everything’s alright now. Crisis averted, the kids are fine, Aziraphale’s alright. But I know you thought for a while there that you were going to lose him. So I was just wondering if you were okay.”

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale. The angel was silent, looking back. The same question, with an extra tinge of guilt for not being the one to have asked it, was written across his face. Crowley cleared his throat. He hadn’t anticipated being put on the spot. “Er, I’m alright. I’m fine.” When Damian just blinked at him, he tensed and snapped, “It was the worst few days of my life, alright? But they’re over and everything’s _fine_ and I don’t want to think about it.”

In his arms, Isidora whimpered at the harshness of his voice, and shame washed over Crowley. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze, and sighed. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

Damian nodded, and gave Crowley a reassuring half-smile. Anathema cleared her throat, breaking the tension. “So, Aziraphale. The book.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Book? _Oh. _The book.”

“Yes.”

He gave a guilty shrug. “I think Agnes thought we could use a bit of advice. I don’t blame her. We do have a history of being remarkably incompetent.” He shared a private, insider smile with Crowley. “But you know how she is. Her prophecies have a tendency to be confusing, until you read them in hindsight. Many of them make little sense at all, but I’ve done my best.”

The guests stayed for another few hours before they began to admit that they really must be off, be it to work or school or simply home before the snow started coming down again. They did help Crowley and Aziraphale bring all the children back upstairs while Brian remarked, with a knowing look, that they really could use more hands, and reminded them that he was available anytime. They smiled, and graciously escorted him and the rest of their friends to the door.

When it closed behind them, Crowley said, “I really thought Anathema was going to ask you if she could have a copy of your book.”

“I thought so too,” Aziraphale admitted. “But I was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t. But that’s humans for you. They grow in magnificent ways.”

“Not just humans.”

Aziraphale looked at him. “Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“When you thought I was dead. That the labour was killing me. Were those really the worst days of your life? You’ve had rather a lot of them.”

Crowley swallowed hard and didn’t meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Yeah. I meant it.”

“More than Falling?” Aziraphale’s voice was tentative; he knew how Crowley felt about him broaching that subject.

Crowley opened his mouth and then shut it again. After a minute, he said, “Yeah. More than Falling. At least when I was Falling I knew where I’d land. Thinking I might be without you…it was like that, except I didn’t know. It was like falling and falling and falling and not knowing if I was ever going to reach the bottom. That was worse than Hell by a longshot.”

“Oh.”

“Did you know?”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to avoid Crowley’s eyes as the demon turned them onto him. “Did I know what?”

“When you asked me to promise you that I wouldn’t abandon our kids if you died, did you know? With the stupid prophecies and what-have-you, did you think you were going to die?”

“I-“ Aziraphale started, and then stopped. He hung his head. “I had a suspicion. Half a suspicion, really, more an inkling. Not even-“

“Aziraphale.”

His mouth snapped shut. Slowly, he met Crowley’s eyes. “I knew it was a possibility. Likely, even.”

“You should have told me.”

“I should have. And I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“Apology accepted.” Crowley glanced up the stairs. “We should go check on the kids.”

“In a moment,” Aziraphale said. “I wanted to ask you something, where they wouldn’t hear.”

“Oh?”

“It’s about…well, about Hell. And Heaven.”

Crowley studied the tiled floor. “What about them?”

“We won’t be able to keep the children cooped up in the house forever. Eventually they’ll want to go out, and anyway _I _don’t want to spend forever afraid to go beyond the gate. Do you think…I mean, if the children throw off an energy that makes them difficult to track, and if we benefit by extension…do you think we should still be concerned?”

There were a few scratched tiles. Crowley suspected Dog was to blame. Eventually, he said, “I think we’re always going to be concerned. We’re always going to be looking over our shoulders. I don’t think…I think we should avoid miracles, and I think we should tell the children too, even if they can’t be tracked, but I don’t want to hide forever either, and I don’t want them to feel like prisoners in their home. When they’re a little older, we’ll take them out.” He gave Aziraphale a small smile. “Unless, of course, you like the idea of pushing a massive pram around.”

“We should wait until they’re stroller-sized at least,” Aziraphale agreed.

There was a loud thud upstairs, and both angel and demon tensed. They exchanged looks, and then bolted for the stairs. At the landing, they paused. Aziraphale frowned. “Does that sound like…”

The proceeded with slightly more caution towards the nursery. The sound, which grew progressively louder as they approached, became distinct. “_So it was that Frodo saw her whom few mortals had yet seen; Arwen, daughter of Elrond, in whom it was said that the likeness of Luthien had come on earth again; and she was called Undumiel, for she was the Evenstar of her people._”

Crowley pushed the nursery door open. On the carpet, next to the overturned rocking chair, seven pairs of eyes turned to look at them. Ophelia, who was holding the book and who now, like their siblings, looked much closer to a three-year-old than to a newborn, spoke again, crisply and far more eloquently than the average three-year-old, and with a hint of guilt in their voice, “We wanted to know what happened next.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged another look. If they’d been human, they might have fainted in surprise. Well, Aziraphale might have. If Crowley had been human, he would not have been the sort of human to faint in surprise at much of anything. He did, however, goggle. Aziraphale recovered first and cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “One more chapter, I think, and then I believe we need to have a talk.”

[1] Actually, most angels would not advise humans of anything, because angels on the whole do not see much use for the world other than as a piece of the ineffable plan, most likely the gameboard on which it will be played out, and have a tendency to regard Earth and its inhabitants the way humans often regard modern art: as something to be smiled politely over in a museum in recognition of the artist’s work, but which they privately reflect is not all that impressive anyway, and they could probably do just as well if they’d attempted it themselves. They are also resistant to the use of idioms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They grow up so fast.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Athaliah said. She tilted her head thoughtfully and blew a lock of her long, black hair out of her face. “I thought you said Heaven and Hell can’t find us.”

“We don’t think they can,” Aziraphale said. He’d spent the better part of an hour explaining. They might have looked about three years old (although that was only a guess; Athaliah looked closer to four or five, and Percival remained the smallest, so Aziraphale suspected there was a bit of a range) but none of them spoke like three-year-olds, nor, it was clear, did they think like them. “It’s just a precaution. Better safe than sorry.”

Ophelia narrowed her eyes. The yellow was even sharper in contrast with her hair, which was black like her sister’s, but stuck up in short, unruly spikes all over her head. “You mean we have to grow normally, then?”

“Er.” Aziraphale looked towards Crowley for help. Unlike the angel, who was sitting on the carpet with the children, Crowley was standing a few feet away, his arms crossed and a peculiar expression on his face. He gave Aziraphale a look that told him he was on his own here. “I’m not sure what ‘normally’ means for you,” Aziraphale admitted, “but if it’s not bursts of abrupt growth, then yes, that would be preferable.”

The children sat around him in a semi-circle. The blankets they’d previously been swaddled in were draped over them like togas, although admittedly ill-fitting ones. They were going to have to go clothes shopping, something in the back of Aziraphale’s consciousness had noted. Spontaneous growth had been something he and Crowley had considered, if not entirely expected – the children had taken a year and a half just to be born, after all, and they’d anticipated their growth pattern after the birth would likely match that – but they’d agreed it would have been incredibly difficult to prepare for, so they didn’t have clothes available. They’d have to think of something before they took the children out, and Aziraphale would have been gladdened to know that most of Crowley’s thoughts were preoccupied with that. The rest were experiencing something like a computer glitch.

Lysander, whose colouring matched Aziraphale’s, although his blond was closer to yellow, and who resembled a tiny, chubby surfer more than Aziraphale’s bookish appearance, gave a shrug and propped himself back on his hands. “That’s alright,” he said. “We can talk. We can walk alright. I don’t see the rush for the rest of it.”

“Shelves,” Ophelia argued, indicating the rocking chair, which no one had thought to put right.

“Step-stools,” Lysander countered.

There comes a time in every parent’s life when they realize just how unprepared they are to be dealing with their children. For some parents, this comes sometime during the pregnancy, as they imagine all the potential horrors raising a child could involve, and results in a proper panic. For others, it comes shortly after the birth, when the child wakes them up at all hours for food or a diaper change or simply because they’re uncomfortable, and sleep deprivation drives the parent to a tidy little mental breakdown. And for many parents, it comes around the age of two, when children are old enough to be getting into things and young enough to still be putting everything into their mouth and crying like an air raid siren when they are prevented from doing so. Regardless of when the first one hits, this feeling will become a near-constant in most parents’ lives, because raising a child is a good deal more complicated than some people would like you to believe, even when that child is perfectly average in every way.

Aziraphale’s children were not average in any way, as far as he could tell, and he was currently being hit with that feeling, full force, for the first time. He watched the debate about the merits of growing up continue, opened his mouth, and let it hang there silently.

A hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up, and his jaw snapped shut. Crowley was looking down at him. The demon had gone through what Aziraphale was currently experiencing the moment he’d set foot in the room, and he’d finally gotten a handle on himself. He hadn’t read just about every parenting book under the sun to freeze up when presented with something unexpected, after all. Many of the books had said that when it came to children, you ought to expect the unexpected, although they probably meant dealing with temper tantrums out of apparently nowhere or unanticipated allergies, rather than spontaneous growth spurts that left week-old children looking like three-year-olds and talking like well-educated seven-year-olds. But you had to be flexible.

“I know it might not be convenient for you,” he said, halting the argument between Ophelia and Lysander, which looked like it might be about to escalate into hair-pulling if no one stepped in, “but it’s meant to keep you safe.” Aziraphale had explained, in broad terms, that there were people in the world who would likely pose a threat to the children, although he’d neglected to mention that those people were the entirety of Heaven and Hell and, in all probability, a good portion of the human race, if they were to find out that supernatural beings walked among them, and that the threat was likely much more dire than he’d implied. “Do you think you can do that?” Crowley asked.

There were seven nods. No one looked particularly enthusiastic about it, but on the whole no one looked particularly upset either, although Ophelia was still glaring at her brother, as if debating whether or not hair-pulling was something she’d still like to do. Crowley clapped his hands together. “Alright, then. Show of hands, who wants their own bedroom?” Four hands shot up, two rose slowly, and the last glanced tentatively around and then lifted too. “Alright,” Crowley said. “Let’s go sort out who’s sleeping where.” He shepherded the flock of children to their feet and shooed them out the door. Aziraphale remained seated on the floor, looking a bit like a fussy librarian who had been abandoned by the children at story time because there was a movie about superheroes being played down the hall. He found it in himself to turn and look at Crowley, who paused in the doorway to say, “Take a minute. You look like you could use it.”

Aziraphale nodded gratefully, his lips offering a weak smile, and once the door closed behind Crowley he sagged. He was an angel, and able to comprehend a wide array of strange and wonderful things, but he was also now a father, and rather a lot had happened very quickly. As Crowley would be the first to point out, Aziraphale struggled with many kinds of change: fashion, culture, restaurant locations. This one he would be able to grasp quickly enough, he reasoned. But he needed a moment to process it first.

The house had been enormous by design, and it was paying off. Crowley found he was able to keep up with the children by the simple virtue that his legs were much, _much _longer than theirs. If he walked quickly, he was just able to keep pace.

There were no bedrooms on the first floor, but there was little else on the upper two, save for Aziraphale’s library. They were sparsely furnished, impersonal and empty, but there was still quite a bit of scuffling over who got to have the rooms with the balconies. Crowley had barked out, “Oi! No running on the stairs,” when Phinehas had taken them at top speed – he had slowed down to a reasonable canter – and also “pull your sister’s hair and you get last pick of the room, and I mean it,” which had removed Ophelia’s fist from a handful of Isidora’s blonde curls.

A pair of tiny arms encircled Crowley’s leg, and he looked down. His heart skipped a beat right up into his throat. He wondered how long it would take him _not _to feel like that every time he caught sight of Ephraim’s eyes. He squatted down to be on Ephraim’s level. “Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”

Ephraim was the only one who hadn’t spoken yet, and he hadn’t gone running like the others at the prospect of claiming his own room. He blinked slowly at Crowley, who waited patiently. Finally, in a voice both soft and slow, Ephraim said, “I don’t want a new room.”

“No?”

Ephraim shook his head. He folded his arms – not petulantly, but protectively – across his chest. He tucked his chin. “I like the old one.”

“You want us to turn the nursery into your bedroom?” Crowley asked. “We can do that.”

A small smile spread across Ephraim’s face, and he nodded. Crowley ruffled his hair, knocking the curls askew[1]. A thud resounded somewhere down the hall and he winced. “Let’s go see what that was, hmm?” He stood up and hurried towards the sound, calling out ahead of him, “I’d better not have to break up any fights!” By the time he got there, Ophelia and Phinehas were both smiling innocently at him. Nothing appeared to be broken, so Crowley merely fixed them with a stern look and let it be.

By the time rooms were selected – Athaliah, Phinehas, and Lysander had claimed the balconied rooms, and Ophelia had nearly broken Percival’s nose to claim one of the two bedrooms on the third floor – Aziraphale felt quite good enough to join them. Ephraim gave him a considering look from behind Crowley, where he’d done his best to avoid the scuffles of his siblings, and when Aziraphale smiled Ephraim braved wandering over to him. Aziraphale wasn’t exactly a tall man, but he was massive in comparison to a three-year-old, and he had to look down to meet Ephraim’s gaze. “Is something the matter, my dear?” Aziraphale asked.

“Do you not love us anymore?”

Aziraphale blinked. Shocked was too simple a word to describe his reaction to the question. It simply didn’t make any sense. He was an angel, after all, and angels were first and foremost beings of love, no matter what anyone said. And these were his children. Aziraphale couldn’t comprehend not loving them anymore than he could comprehend not loving Crowley, or not loving a particularly rare misprinted Bible. It simply wasn’t in his genes, insomuch as angels had genes.

“Of course I still love you,” he said, staring down at Ephraim with wide eyes. “Why on Earth would you think otherwise?”

“You seemed upset, before,” Ephraim said. “When we grew up. You didn’t like it.”

Aziraphale knelt so he could be on the boy’s level. “That’s not it at all,” he said gently. “You surprised me. That’s all it was. I needed a moment to myself. But I’m here now, I promise, and I still love you very much.”

Ephraim tugged nervously at the edges of his blanket. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Ephraim nodded once, and then wandered away, poking his head into different rooms as he went. Crowley, who had watched the whole exchange without getting involved, offered a hand out to Aziraphale, who took it and got back to his feet. “You alright?” he asked quietly, mindful of the fact that their children’s hearing was almost certainly as good as theirs.

Aziraphale nodded. “I am. I will be.”

“Good. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but we’ve got this.”

“I do hope you’re right.” Aziraphale sighed.

Crowley gave him what he hoped was a reassuring grin. “’Course I’m right. I’m always right.”

“Need I remind you about 1923-“

“I’m _nearly_ always right,” said Crowley, who didn’t want to remember what had happened in 1923, particularly because the angel had no idea what had happened after he’d left, and Crowley wanted to keep it that way. “I already started making a list. What we’ve got to do. Clothes shopping, furniture shopping, the whole shebang. You like lists.”

Aziraphale did like lists, for the same reason that he’d enjoyed doing his taxes when he’d owned a bookshop. “I suppose we’ll want to get started on that as soon as possible, then,” he said.

“First thing’s first,” Crowley said. “We’ve got to get the kids something to wear besides blankets so they can leave the house without us getting all sorts of flack, and we ought to find three pairs of kiddie sunglasses. Somehow I don’t think mine will fit.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Really, my dear, I don’t think-“

“They might not be burned at the stake, but I’m not taking the chance of people gawking, angel. Ophelia might get away with saying it’s an eye condition, but Phinehas and Ephraim’s _look like snakes_. That’s a lot harder to explain away.”

“But it’s a part of them.”

Crowley’s mouth twisted, and he looked away. “Look, I don’t like it either,” he said, “but I don’t see another option here.”

“We could not encourage them to hide parts of themselves.”

Crowley barked out a bitter laugh. “Easy for you to say! You look normal! The weirdest thing about you is the way you dress.”

Aziraphale smoothed down the front of his waistcoat and swallowed hard. He bit his lip and tried not to let the hurt show on his face. He was unsuccessful.

Crowley had regretted the words anyway. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I like the way you dress. It’s weird, but it’s you. My point is just-“

“I understand,” Aziraphale said. “I’m able to hide my angelic nature easily. But there are parts of your nature that are nearly impossible to hide, even if you think very hard about it, and you’ve been hurt very badly by people because of them. It’s natural that you’d want to protect the children from that. I just wish you didn’t have to.”

“Me too,” Crowley sighed. He knew that he and the angel were thinking different things. Aziraphale was thinking about a world where people were kinder, more accepting of differences. A world where Crowley’s eyes, and the eyes of his children, would not incite horror or fear or anger, but would be met with the same love and appreciation that he himself had for them. Crowley was thinking about a world where his eyes had never changed to begin with.

It had crossed his mind several times throughout history, although he’d tried not to think about it too much. What would have happened to him if he hadn’t fallen? Would he still have met Aziraphale? Would they still have spent 6000 years on Earth together, getting to know each other and falling in love? Would they have stopped the apocalypse? When the angels had changed, would they still have been compatible? Would they even have gotten the chance to find out? And their kids…

Well. He avoided thinking about it. If he _did_ think about it for more than half a second, Crowley would have conceded that he wouldn’t have changed anything about his life, including Falling, if it meant risking what he had with Aziraphale and his family. But still. In a kinder world, he’d have had all that and not the eyes. But kinder worlds were for Aziraphale’s imagination, not reality. All he could do was try to shelter his kids from the horrors he’d faced, and hope they never had to deal with people like that.

“You stay here with them,” he said. “Find out if they still need to eat. I’ll pop out for something basic for them all, and when I get back we’ll get them on the computer, do a bit of online furniture shopping for their bedrooms. Tomorrow we can take them out to the shops and get them proper wardrobes.”

Aziraphale coughed delicately. “A lovely idea, my darling. Although you seem to be forgetting something.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“How precisely do you expect to fit seven children into your car?”

[1] They were loose and light brown and Crowley had no idea where he’d gotten them from.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley does a little shopping and has a talk with some of the kids.

It was essentially a minivan, and Crowley hated it. It was long and boxy and black. It reminded him of a hearse, only taller, since the extra space was not designed for lying on one’s back. He’d gotten a lift into the city from Newt, who’d been going that way anyway[1], and it had taken forever – read, a few hours – to find, but it had been worth it, because hideous though it was, Crowley drew the line at driving a literal van. It took a great deal of nudging and cajoling on Aziraphale’s part to get him to park it in the garage with the Bentley, and he only conceded on account of the weather.

There were seven child’s seats strapped into it, and the amused man who had helped him carry the things to the car had asked, in a patronizing voice, “Family roped you into chauffeuring all the nieces and nephews, eh?”

“No,” he had said, his glower so intense that the sunglasses did nothing to protect the salesman from it. “My partner’s just given birth to septuplets.” The man had gulped, offered a weak congratulations, and darted back into the store. At least the man who had sold Crowley the car itself had known to keep his mouth shut.

Aziraphale had commented on the colour when he’d brought it home, but Crowley had told him that finding a car to seat nine that wasn’t so hideous he wanted to drive it off a cliff on principle was difficult enough as it was, and if Aziraphale really cared that much, he could pay someone to paint it. Aziraphale had decided that it didn’t really matter after all, and had soothed Crowley’s irritation later that evening with a massage that had him melting into their mattress and promising to return the favour just as soon as he could feel his bones again.

The outfits he’d picked for the children, once he’d acquired the car to transport them in, were nothing special. The children had seemed oblivious to temperature, but to be on the safe side (and to not be shamed for child endangerment by _those sort_ of people, the kind who believed they had a say in how other people raised their children whether they had their own or not), he had gotten jeans and long-sleeved shirts for everyone, and a set of tiny jumpers in solid colours for good measure. He figured them going pyjama-less for one night wouldn’t make a difference, and Aziraphale had agreed.

Finally, Crowley had brought back three child-sized pairs of sunglasses. After a quiet discussion with Aziraphale, Crowley sat Ophelia, Ephraim, and Phinehas down in the study and explained the situation to them.

“It’s not a problem with you,” he told them. “It’s a problem with other people. Other people don’t like things that are different. Sometimes they get scared, or they get angry, and they might lash out because of that. And it’s not your fault. But it does mean you need to protect yourself.”

For once, neither Ophelia nor Phinehas did anything rambunctious. They both stared at Crowley soberly. Ephraim picked up one of the pairs of glasses and turned them over in his hands.

“It’s not fair,” Phinehas said eventually, his lower lip protruding into a pout. “It’s not fair that we have to make other people feel comfortable just because we don’t look like them.”

“No, it’s not,” Crowley agreed. “But that’s the way it is.”

“Do we have to wear them all the time?” Ophelia asked. She tapped on the lenses of hers with her fingernail.

Crowley shook his head. “Just when you’re out in public. In the house and the yard, or if we’re somewhere else but I say it’s okay, you don’t have to wear them.”

She put them on and squinted, then took them off. “It makes everything darker. I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either,” Crowley confided. He didn’t think even Aziraphale knew that, knew how much he hated wearing the blasted things, hated how they tinted the world around him to dreary shades of black and grey. He’d have worn coloured ones more often, but he felt a bit pathetic for it. “I hate wearing the things.”

“So why do you? Why do we have to?”

“I told you-“

This time it was Phinehas who spoke. “Yeah, you said, but I don’t see why we can’t just make people angry. It’s not our problem if they’re angry.”

Crowley steeled himself, and then said, “You’re smart kids, so you can understand this. It’s not something I like to talk about, and I don’t want to hear you repeating it to your siblings, understand? I am not telling you to scare you. I am telling you because I need you to understand why this is so important to me, alright?”

The three children nodded.

Crowley took a deep breath. “In the thirteenth century, they were burning witches.”

“Why?” Ophelia asked.

“Because they didn’t like smart women,” Crowley said. “And because the church wanted people to be afraid of defying them. And because people sometimes do terrible, horrible things for inexplicable reasons.”

“Sounds stupid,” Phinehas muttered.

“It was,” Crowley said. “But it happened anyway.” He closed his eyes, cleared his throat, and then kept going. “I did a lot of things to hide my face, because people didn’t always understand. Sometimes I got lucky; some people believed I’d been blessed by gods, or found other excuses that fit their worldview. Others…” He licked his lips. His mouth was bone dry. “There was a village. I was just passing through, and I stopped for the night. I was in my room at the inn, and the innkeeper’s daughter came to meet me.”

“Why?” Ophelia again.

Crowley hesitated. He was not going to explain the truth to a three-year-old, not even an ethereally intelligent one. He’d never understood the effect he had on women, anyway.[2] “She fancied me,” he said eventually, “and she wanted to know if I fancied her.” It wasn’t technically a lie. It just left out a few key details of the scenario.

“But you didn’t fancy her,” Ophelia said, matter-of-factly. “Because you fancied Father.”

“Right.” It was, broadly speaking, true. Crowley had never really liked women, or humans in general, and he had liked Aziraphale, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. “And she got upset. And she slapped me. And she saw my eyes.” Crowley’s throat was tight. He rubbed a hand over it, half-expecting to find a noose. “She ran out screaming, right to her father, who wanted to know why she’d been in my room in the first place. So she told him that I was a demon, that the proof was in my eyes, and that I was a servant of Satan, come to tempt the villagers into sin.” Crowley closed his eyes again. The memory stung all the worse because she’d been right on every count but one. Crowley really had just been passing through. He hadn’t intended to cause any trouble. His stay was wile-free. And yet…

Aware the children were watching him, Crowley opened his eyes. He continued in a much quieter voice, “The villagers all came for me. They took me from my room, and they brought me out to the centre of town, where they were building a bonfire. They tied me to a stake in the middle of it, and they lit it on fire. Your father happened to be passing by, and he found me like that, but by the time he pulled me from the flames it was too late.”

“But…but…” Ephraim’s lip trembled. His eyes shone with the beginnings of tears. “You’re alright now.”

“I was discorperated,” Crowley said. “I didn’t die forever. I just…went away for a little while.” He scooted his chair back and patted his thigh. “Come here.” Ephraim climbed into his lap and buried his face in Crowley’s shirt, trembling. Ophelia hesitated, and then flung herself against Crowley’s side and hugged him tight. Phinehas didn’t move, his face set, but Crowley could see something slipping behind his defiant eyes.

Crowley stroked Ophelia’s hair. “I didn’t tell you that story to scare you,” he said. “I’m sorry it did. I just wanted you to understand why this is so important to me.”

“But people don’t burn witches anymore, do they?” Ophelia tilted her head up, staring at him with wide eyes. “They stopped that.”

“They did,” Crowley said. More or less, he didn’t add. “But some people still like to hurt people anyway. People they see as different.”

“But we are different,” Phinehas said. “I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not. But people don’t always look at it that way. That’s why I’d like you to wear the glasses, at least for now. When you’re bigger, and able to take better care of yourselves on your own, then you can do what you like. But for now, it’s important to me that you wear them.”

Ephraim sniffled and nodded. Ophelia seemed hesitant to let go of Crowley, but she separated herself from him enough to nod too. Phinehas lifted his chin, still defiant. It was, Crowley thought, like looking in a funhouse mirror. Phinehas looked just like a miniature version of Crowley, and it was clear he was just as strong-willed. Crowley gave him a pleading look, and some of the fire in Phinehas’s eyes dimmed. “Alright,” he said, grudgingly.

“Thank you,” Crowley said. He didn’t feel much better, but it had to be done. He patted Ophelia’s shoulder gently and said, “Why don’t you all run along, now?” His throat was still tight. He needed a moment just to breathe.

They seemed to understand. Ephraim climbed out of his lap, still trembling, and Ophelia took his hand and led him from the room. Phinehas sulked after them, and when the door closed behind them – not latched, but closed – he slumped down against the table and rested his head on his arms.

“I know you’re there, angel,” he said after he’d gotten himself under control. “You don’t have to lurk.”

“I wasn’t lurking,” Aziraphale murmured, pushing the door open again and stepping into the room. Crowley didn’t lift his head, so he heard, rather than saw, Aziraphale cross over to him. “I did overhear. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not going to tell me off for being too harsh with the kids? Burdening them with a story like that?”

“No,” Aziraphale said simply. He put his hands on Crowley’s shoulders, kneading the tense muscle. “I thought you handled it as well as could be expected. It’s a difficult topic for you, but you feel it’s important, and I understand why. I’m sorry I was so resistant.”

“It’s alright,” Crowley murmured. He was slowly unwinding, relaxing under Aziraphale’s touch. “I get why you were. I just hate it.”

“Hate what?”

“Myself.” The hands on Crowley’s shoulders paused, and Crowley squeezed his eyes more tightly shut. “I hate my eyes, you know that. It’s…they weren’t like that. Before. And they’re proof of what I am, and I hate that. I hate that people look at me and think I’m evil just for that, and I hate that I passed it on to our kids. And I hate that I’m so bloody insecure that my kids are going to suffer for it, are going to go through life thinking something’s wrong with them, thinking that they have to hide a part of themselves, because of my baggage.”

“You’re being practical.”

“I’m being a coward. A selfish, self-loathing coward.”

“Darling-“

“People think we’re gay.” Crowley lifted his head and twisted to look at Aziraphale, who was caught off-guard at what sounded like a complete switch in topic. “They think we’re gay,” Crowley said again, “you especially, and they’re not that far off the mark.”

“Well, I mean, technically-“

“We’re not men, but we’re about as close as it’s possible for an angel and a demon to be,” Crowley continued. His eyes were fixed on a plant behind Aziraphale, but they were unfocused. The plant quivered anyway. “And anyway, that’s not the point, the point is that people _think_ we are, and we encourage that! We hold hands and kiss in public and you look like…” He made a sweeping hand gesture that encompassed all of Aziraphale, “…that, and when people think we’re gay we don’t correct them, we encourage them! Even before we were together we ate off each other’s plates, and there was that club you went to, and 1923…” Crowley blushed and trailed off. He shook himself. “My point is, how many times has someone tried to hurt you because they thought you were queer?”

“More than a few,” Aziraphale admitted. “Although usually I provide a bit of divine inspiration and help them see the error of their ways. It, er, didn’t always work.”

“A couple good punches usually does the trick,” said Crowley, darkly. “That’s my point. People think we’re gay, and some people want to hurt us because of it. Some people actually have. But we don’t stop that, we encourage it. So why is that different? Why can I walk down the street holding your hand without giving a shit, but even the idea of being in public without my sunglasses makes me nauseous?”

“Well, one of those things is a choice.”

Crowley scoffed. “If you think I had any choice in loving you, angel-“

“That’s not what I meant.” Aziraphale’s fingers returned to their kneading. “The love we feel is innate within us. It’s something we are, not something thrust upon us.”

Crowley bit his lip to keep from snorting and making a joke. Aziraphale didn’t notice. “You choose, _we_ choose, to show the world how we feel because we know we are stronger for it. We are stronger for loving one another, for having our family, and what other people believe doesn’t matter.”

“So what?”

“So…” Aziraphale cupped Crowley’s chin with one hand and tilted it up, forcing Crowley to make eye contact with him. “Your eyes were not an innate part of you. They were something that happened to you, a punishment for Falling.” Crowley flinched, but Aziraphale kept going. “I think they’re beautiful. I’ve told you that, I told you I fell in love with them. For me, they’re a part of you, and they’re a part I love dearly. But for you, they’re a reminder of what you are now, and they’re a reminder of how people treat you because of that. They don’t make you feel strong, they make you feel weak. Hated. Unlovable. Am I right?”

Crowley mumbled an affirmative. Aziraphale still held his chin, but Crowley was doing his best to avoid looking at the angel. Aziraphale’s grip gentled, and he shifted the hold to touch Crowley’s cheek, cradling it. “It’s hard to unlearn a hatred like that, one that comes from within as much as without. One that was formed in internal trauma and solidified in external. I will never ask you to love all of yourself as I love all of you. I know how hard that would be, and there are practical reasons to hide that part of yourself, that part of our children, from people who would not understand. But here, behind closed doors, in the safety of our own home, I will always hope that you can see yourself through my eyes, can see how loved you are, how you have never been and will never be unlovable because there are days I believe I was created for the purpose of loving you, because it comes as naturally to me as reading or walking. I will always hope that you feel safe with me, safe to be yourself in whatever form that comes, and know that I will accept you with open arms.”

Crowley sniffed and tried to pretend he wasn’t tearing up. “Nice speech, angel.”

“It’s not a speech. It’s how I feel.”

“Might be both.” Crowley cleared his throat and surreptitiously wiped his eyes. “Thank you, though. Hearing all that, it makes me feel a bit better.” He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to believe it properly, but hearing it was a start.

Aziraphale smiled. He squeezed Crowley’s shoulder. “Why don’t we retire to our bedroom, and I’ll do my best to make you feel more than a little better, hmm?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows, giving the angel a surprised but somehow still seductive grin. “That’s awfully forward of you, angel.”

“I meant a massage, you foul thing,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes and somehow managing the infuse ‘foul thing’ with more adoration and warmth than even his most heartfelt ‘my darling.’

“Far be it from me to say no to your hands all over me,” Crowley teased without any heat. He took said hands and kissed the knuckles one by one. “Who knows. Maybe the kids will even get some sleep.”

Some of them did and some of them didn’t – Phinehas could be heard crashing around his room well into the night, and Percival and Ophelia holed up in the library reading, while Ephraim dozed on a nearby chair and Athaliah napped beside him – but they all managed to entertain themselves long enough for their parents to have a quiet moment to themselves. True to his word, Aziraphale went to work massaging every bit of tension he could find out of Crowley’s body, and a few hours later, when Crowley wasn’t a limp puddle on the bed, he returned the favour. A few hours after that, they slept. They did not dream, but that was alright. Everything they needed was in the real world anyway.

[1] Which was a horror unto itself, because under any other circumstances Crowley wouldn’t be caught dead in a Wasabi, which even _Hell_ hadn’t had a hand in, thank you very much.

[2] Well, he did understand it. He knew he was attractive. He just didn’t understand why they were drawn to him when he put a good deal of effort into radiating a sense of “not interested” as loud as he possibly could.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The children go to London.

Crowley might not have liked the car, but it did its job. As the gate opened, he turned around in his seat, double-checking the rainbow of jumper-clad children settled behind him. “Everyone buckled in?” A series of nods. “Good. They stay on the whole time, and I don’t want to hear any complaining about it. I’m not looking to test how indestructible you are if we get into an accident.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale admonished.

Crowley shot him a look. He had never had an accident in the Bentley (turning the entire car into a fireball that one time did not count) and he didn’t intend to start now. But it had to be said: Crowley and Aziraphale might have been nigh invulnerable in the long term, and it stood to reason their children would be as well, but there was no need to experiment with the theory. He conveyed all this with the tilt of his head, and Aziraphale nodded and relaxed back into his seat.

“Alright,” said Crowley. “We’re off.”

The gate closed behind them, and all down the lane curtains twitched as nosy neighbours squinted at the car through their windows and wondered what the Fells were up to now.[1]

The children goggled out the windows. Lysander pressed a hand and his cheek to the glass, trying to get a better look. The countryside transitioned into city, because Crowley figured that if this was his children’s first outing into the world, he was going to introduce them to London, even if there were clothing stores closer to the house.

He found a place to park. It was harder than usual, without the aid of a miracle, but it was still easier than Crowley had expected in London. He did nearly hit the cars on both sides of him as he pulled into the space, but Crowley was a deft driver even without using his powers, and in a car that size he really didn’t have very many options.

“Everybody out,” he said, throwing it into park with only a little malice. “Careful of the road.”

It took a minute and some help from both him and Aziraphale undoing various buckles, but eventually the seven of them piled out of the car and onto the pavement. They craned their necks up, staring at the buildings that stretched into the sky with mouths open. Ophelia subtly pushed her sunglasses down her nose so she could peer up over them, and then pushed them back again.

“It’s big,” Isidora said succinctly. Her curls bounced, sunlight reflecting off the blonde ringlets like gold, as she twisted her head this way and that, trying to take it all in. Her eyes, grey as the London sky, shone brightly.

“It’s alright,” said Phinehas, picking moodily at his jumper. The sleeves were already shedding muted orange threads. His sunglasses had a faint scratch along the left lens.

“Shopping first,” Aziraphale said practically. “Then we can stop for a bit of lunch, if you’d like, and then maybe we can take a walk through St. James’s park. How does that sound?”

There was a chorus of agreement, and Aziraphale led the way, the children following after him in a mostly-neat row like a trail of oversized ducklings. Crowley brought up the rear, hands in his pockets and watching for signs of stragglers. He kept a particularly careful eye on Phinehas.

Crowley had never been fond of clothes shopping. He hadn’t used to do it, preferring to miracle his clothes into being. It was cheaper, easier, and meant he never had to go to a tailor. He had, on a few occasions, gone with Aziraphale, because the angel did like to buy his clothes and had since the dawn of time. Those outings had, for the most part, been incredibly boring, except for the one time Crowley had cajoled Aziraphale into trying on a pair of skinny jeans. The angel had hated it, but Crowley had filed that image away in his head for later use. He’d gotten a good deal of mileage out of it, so he considered it a success, even if he had felt a bit guilty about it at the time.

Clothes shopping for children was both easier and more difficult than clothes shopping with Aziraphale. Easier because the children’s sections had a decent variety and at that age finding things that fit well was less of a concern since growing was bound to still happen. More difficult because there were seven of them and only one each of Crowley and Aziraphale.

They’d looked at each other when they’d first walked in and the children had broken ranks and scampered off. “You take the girl’s section and I’ll take the boys?” Crowley offered. Aziraphale nodded, and he broke off with Athaliah, Isidora, and Ophelia. Crowley wrangled Percival, Phinehas, Ephraim, and Lysander into a cluster and headed off in the other direction.

He set them loose once they got there. “Figure out what you like, and we’ll make it work. And don’t leave the area.” Percival went instantly for the child formal wear section, and Lysander made a beeline for the overalls. Phinehas poked around more broadly, thumbing at t-shirts with interesting designs and shorts with a truly indecent number of pockets. Ephraim remained by Crowley’s side, peering out at it all and frowning.

“Everything alright, buddy?” Crowley asked him.

He was getting the hang of Ephraim’s slow answers now, and gradually the boy said, “I don’t like any of this.”

“You sure? You haven’t really looked.”

A firm nod.

“Okay. What sort of thing do you think you’ll like, then?”

Ephraim thought about it for a minute. Then his face creased into a worried frown and he shifted uneasily. “Does it have to be from the boy’s section?” he asked.

“Not if you don’t want it to,” Crowley said easily. This was something he could deal with because it was something he and Aziraphale were familiar with on a personal level.

“But I’m not a girl.”

“So what? You know your father and I aren’t girls or boys, right?”

Ephraim nodded.

“We like to look like boys, because that’s how we feel best. But there’s lots of ways to look like a boy. Your father does it more than I do, but we’ve both worn things that most people would say are women’s clothes plenty of times.” Crowley favoured dresses, if he was going to go that way at all, dresses and heels and a full face of makeup and loads of tasteful accessories. Aziraphale tended to wear what he’d normally wear, but with a skirt instead of trousers.

“So, if I wanted to get clothes from the girl’s section, that’d be alright?”

“Of course,” Crowley said. The sections weren’t that far apart; he could see Aziraphale from here, and he nudged Ephraim in that direction. “Why don’t you run over and tell your father what you want, alright? I’m sure he’ll help you find something you like.”

Ephraim nodded and hurried off in the direction of Aziraphale. A minute or so later, Ophelia returned in his place. “Everything over there’s too pink,” she complained, by way of explanation. “And too many ruffles.”

“Have at it,” Crowley said, nodded towards the racks. “Lot less pink, and almost no ruffles.”

Crowley liked to think he was stylish. He _was_ stylish, most of the time, although on occasions where he’d napped for a decade or so there were always a few days where his fashion sense needed to catch up. Aziraphale, by comparison, had never really been what one might call stylish, although he’d done alright simply by virtue of the fact that suits like his never went all the way out of style, just became ‘vintage.’ Crowley had braced himself, imaging what the children might want to wear, and he’d been pleasantly surprised.

It wasn’t that the children all had an impeccable sense of style. They were children after all, and in Crowley’s understanding children tended to favour practicality over style when they had the choice. But none of their choices were what Crowley would consider hideous, although Lysander’s decision of overalls and bowties was odd to say the least, so he called it a win. Percival liked tiny suits, somewhere between the hyper-formal preference of Aziraphale and Crowley’s more laid-back versions. Phinehas like t-shirt with bold prints and cargo shorts, and Ophelia liked the same, although she preferred layers with her shirts, especially flannels, and liked jeans more than shorts. When they met Aziraphale and the other three in the middle, Athaliah had a set of very fluffy dresses supplemented with a handful of more practical rompers, Isidora had a few more simple dresses but also plenty of leggings and a few t-shirts trailing glitter, and Ephraim was nervously clutching a little stack of skirts and t-shirts in one hand, and a package of patterned hair clips in the other.

“All set?” Crowley asked Aziraphale.

The angel nodded. “I do believe we found everything we need,” he said. He, like Crowley, had considered what the children had not, and both adults were carrying socks and underwear. On their way over to the register, they passed a row of winter coats, and Crowley made each of the children snag one before they checked out. Aziraphale also noticed a patterned scarf, red and black and shimmering like scales, and he took that too. Crowley pretended not to notice, but he was rather touched.

The cashier was a bored-looking young woman with a smiley-face sticker on her name badge, which said she was called Amy. She had been leaning surreptitiously against the counter and checking her phone under it, where management wouldn’t be able to see, but she straightened up as the little troop approached. Her eyes flicked first to Aziraphale, then to Crowley, then to the seven children between them. As Aziraphale, oblivious to her stare, encouraged the children to stack their items neatly on the check-out counter, Crowley kept his eyes on her. He could see a series of images flicking through Amy’s head, but as she began to ring them out she must have landed on something satisfactory, because her posture relaxed slightly.

Amy had in fact been going through a series of concerned thoughts, beginning with the fact that two men, neither of whom looked like the traditional fatherly sort and one of whom was wearing sunglasses and gave Amy an uncomfortable sense of unease, out with seven children could be something worth calling her managers down for, and ceasing abruptly when the shorter man in the white coat glanced towards his black-clad counterpart, and smiled the way Amy had seen her dad smile at her mum. She scolded herself for insensitive assumptions and smiled twice as brightly as she scanned their purchases.

Aziraphale took the scarf out of the bag when Amy set it down and looped it tenderly around Crowley’s neck. “I thought it suited you,” he said.

Crowley ran a hand over the silky fabric and smiled. “Figures that you’re better at dressing me than you are at dressing yourself.”

“Oh, stop. You like my clothes.”

“I like them on you,” Crowley allowed. He didn’t have a very high opinion of Aziraphale’s wardrobe as far as the items themselves were concerned, but Aziraphale did make them look good.

Ephraim followed Aziraphale’s lead and plucked the hair clips from the bag. He considered, chose the two sparkly blue ones, and then did his best to pin his long curls up on either side of his face. It ended up messy and lopsided, so Crowley stepped in to adjust them while Aziraphale paid.

“You’ve got such well-behaved kids,” Amy told him as she swiped his card.[2] “Are they all yours?”

“All of them,” Aziraphale said proudly. “They’re being very good today.”

“They’re going to get a treat for it,” Crowley agreed, finishing with Ephraim’s hair. He dropped the rest of the clips back into one of the bag and scooped up a few of them by the handles. “Let’s get these in the car, angel, and then we can do lunch.”

Amy watched them go and smiled. A very nice family indeed.

With the clothes safely stowed in the boot of the car, they headed next in the direction of a little café that Crowley and Aziraphale sometimes frequented. The Ritz was not exactly child friendly, but the café had lots of sandwiches and pastries and other treats, as well as excellent tea and cocoa, which was just as good. The children, as far as Crowley and Aziraphale had been able to tell, did not need to eat at this point, but they certainly liked to, much in the way that Aziraphale in particular liked to eat. They let them have what they liked, and ignored a few of the middle-aged women – mothers, from the look of them – shooting them disapproving looks for allowing sweets in the middle of the afternoon. _Those people_, Crowley thought, and resisted the urge to make their tea a few degrees too hot. No miracles. Even if they deserved it.

They ate outside on the way to the park, balancing cardboard cups with plastic lids and sandwiches or sweets. Percival was shedding lettuce, even as he tried to eat neatly, and frosting affixed itself to Isidora’s nose with every bite of cake. Aziraphale had a handful of napkins at the ready, but Crowley stilled his hand. Better to wait until they were done eating, he reasoned, and took a bite of his own pastry. He swapped it for Aziraphale’s without really thinking about it, and the angel hummed in approval as he took a bite of Crowley’s blueberry scone. Aziraphale’s lemon square was better, in Crowley’s opinion, so he kept it. Aziraphale didn’t mind.

Phinehas had scarfed his brownie in two bites and run off ahead, prompting Ophelia to race into the park after him, her own face still smeared with chocolate. So much for napkins, Crowley thought. “Don’t go too far,” he called out after them, mindful of the way Aziraphale was beginning to tense.

They skidded to a stop beside the duck pond. It was the wrong time of year for ducks, but the few birds that didn’t choose to migrate during the colder months, and who capitalized on bread in the ducks’ absence, recognized children as a gamble weighted in favour of screaming and chasing rather than breadcrumbs, and wisely flew out of grasping range. Phinehas threw a stone into the water, cheering when it let up a splash. Ophelia threw one after.

The rest of them caught up. Percival went poking around the weeds, looking for anything besides the ducks that might be living there, and Athaliah followed, watching with interest. Ephraim joined them, keeping close to his sister to the point of nearly tripping her a few times, although she bore it with patience. Lysander found a stick and began drawing patterns in the dirt, and Isidora sat down on a nearby bench and stared around at the other people.

Many of the other people stared back. There was still a layer of snow on the ground, although outside the park it had all turned to ugly slush, and as such there weren’t as many people out and about. But there were some. They consisted of lovers taking what they hoped would be romantic strolls, a few other parents with a child or two in tow because they couldn’t stand being cooped up inside any longer, and a handful of people walking dogs. There were also the usual assortment of secret agents, those who still got to go out into the field in a digitized world, but they paid no mind to Crowley and Aziraphale, although one did recognize them as she was glancing about, and did the briefest of double takes, because she had never seen them with children before. Good for them, she thought to herself. They’d been together long enough, given the number of times she’d seen them in the park together. Good for them for finally taking the plunge into parenthood.

But aside from the agents, they were drawing a few stares. Crowley had expected that; he didn’t look like the sort of man who’d be allowed to work at a day-care, and he barely looked like the sort of man people would believe could be a father, so running around with seven children in tow, even with Aziraphale by his side, was bound to draw some funny looks. He ignored them and wrapped an arm around his husband’s waist.

“Today seems to be going well,” Aziraphale murmured, too low for any of the children to hear. Not that they were listening. “Letting them experience the outside world, and nothing bad has happened.”

“Mmm,” Crowley agreed. “A couple people have looked at us funny, but that’s about it.”

“We expected that.”

“I’m surprised you noticed.”

“I’m not entirely oblivious.”

Crowley nodded. “Anyway, they’re just people. We haven’t run into any of Hell’s minions, as far as I can tell.”

“Nor Heaven,” Aziraphale said. “The children really do appear to be cloaked.”

“Even if they assume we’re still in London, it’s a pretty big city. I can’t imagine them investing too many resources in us, either.”

“Exactly.” Aziraphale smiled and leaned his head against Crowley’s shoulder. “So long as we keep a low profile, everything should be alright.”

There was a sudden commotion. A bird, which had weighed its chances and hopped over to the cluster of children, took off in a flurry of feathers as Phinehas lost interest in throwing rocks and instead made a grab for it. He took off running after it, arms outstretched, and Aziraphale and Crowley both straightened up. Without looking at each other for confirmation, they both began to stride briskly across the frozen grass.

They hadn’t gotten more than two steps when the bird decided that going higher meant a better chance at escape and soared several meters up. Too determined now he’d started chasing it to let it go, Phinehas’s form shifted, the air around him rippling ever so slightly, and to Aziraphale and Crowley’s shock and horror a pair of fluffy crimson wings, dark as drying blood, burst from his back and took him up into the air after it.

Everyone in the park noticed. It was impossible not to. Crowley decided that this was precisely the sort of emergency that warranted minor miracles, and with a blink he was halfway across the park, just in time to snag Phinehas’s ankle and yank him down again. He blocked Phinehas’s wings with his coat and snarled, “Phinehas Alexander Fell! What the _Hell_ was that?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale cautioned. The angel had caught up. He had also weighed the risk and decided that miracling away a few seconds of information from about a dozen people’s heads was better than a dozen people telling the newspapers about a winged child, which explained why people turned away as if nothing had happened and returned to their own lives.

Crowley didn’t listen to the angel. “Put those away this instant!” he hissed at his son, and with a look of terror, Phinehas drew his wings in so quickly they became little more than blurs of red against his back.

Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s shoulder, fingers digging in. “_Crowley_,” he snapped. “Stand down. Now.”

“But-“

“Houseplants,” Aziraphale reminded him, his voice as cold as the winter air.

Crowley blinked behind his glasses, and then straightened up, ashamed. Aziraphale turned to Phinehas. His voice was still stern, but it lost the icy edge. “What were you thinking?” he asked. “We tried to impress upon you how important it was not to draw attention to ourselves.”

“But…” Phinehas still looked frightened. He glanced at Crowley, who suddenly felt sick. He turned his back on the two of them and covered his mouth with the back of his fist. The lemon bar was coming back up as bile and he swallowed hard against it.

“A stunt like that could have been very dangerous,” Aziraphale said.

“But you only said it was my _eyes_,” Phinehas said. Miraculously, the sunglasses hadn’t fallen off. “You didn’t say anything about _wings._”

“We didn’t think we had to,” said Aziraphale. They hadn’t actually seen proof of the children’s wings up until that point, so it had admittedly slipped his mind. He gentled. “And that is our fault for not being clearer. But Phinehas, you’re an intelligent child. When we told you there were people who might try to hurt you if they found out you were different, did it not occur to you that this is what we meant?”

“Well…”

“What about your siblings?” Aziraphale gestured over to them. They’d been drawn in by the commotion and now huddled together, a sad and colourful semicircle of the sort that children sometimes assume when their parents are scolding a sibling who did something terrible. “Did you consider their safety?”

“No…” Phinehas scuffed at the ground with his toe.

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, but the demon was still trying to get a handle on himself. The rage had faded, but the guilt had just gotten started. Aziraphale sighed. “We’ll discuss this more at home,” he decided aloud, and nudged Phinehas back towards the others. “Apparently we’ve been out long enough today.”

Ophelia shot Phinehas a nasty look. Ephraim shrank back behind Athaliah, whose expression was tight. Aziraphale did his best to give them all a reassuring smile, but as he glanced back at Crowley again, it started to feel rather fake.

Crowley wanted to stand there forever. He didn’t want to turn around and look his children in the eye. But Aziraphale couldn’t drive them home. The demon took a deep breath, steeled himself, and led them all back to the car.

[1] They’d needed a last name, Crowley had reasoned when they were planning on moving. Something shared, for paperwork and things. Something they could give to the children, so no one thought it odd they didn’t have a last name, as humans tended to do, at least in England. Using ‘Crowley’ just sounded odd, given Crowley’s pension for going by that, rather than his human name, ‘Anthony,’ so they’d picked Aziraphale’s, although if anyone ever thought too hard about it they might say that ‘Anthony Crowley-Fell’ and ‘Aziraphale Fell’ were both very odd sounding names in different ways, but no one ever thought about it that hard. They had more interesting things to think about the couple than about their names.

[2] Crowley’s card, technically. It was in his name. Aziraphale knew how to use a credit card, because it was damn near impossible to operate in modern society without one, but he did distrust the things immensely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley apologizes.

“Does he hate me?” Crowley asked wretchedly. The drive home had been silent, and after the children had all vacated the car and fled to the comfort of the house, followed by Aziraphale, Crowley had remained behind in the garage, sitting on the steps to nowhere with his head in his hands.

Aziraphale closed the door behind him and folded his arms. “No,” he said. “Phinehas doesn’t hate you. I confined him to his room for the next day or so, and we had a conversation. He understands what he did wrong, and he’s promised not to do it again. Do you?”

“I yelled at him,” Crowley mumbled. He scrubbed at his eyes. He wasn’t crying, but they itched as if he was. “He’s just a kid, barely a couple weeks old, and I yelled at him.”

In the face of his partner’s misery, Aziraphale softened. He sat down next to Crowley. “You reacted rashly, I’ll grant you, but-“

“I should have done better.”

“Will you?”

Crowley lifted his head and sniffed. “What?”

“Will you do better?”

Crowley blinked at him. Aziraphale gave him a thin, humourless smile. “We’re both going to make mistakes, my dear. Humans do all the time, and you and I are rather set in our ways. There are going to be challenges, and we might not always react as we should. This time, it was you. Next time, it might be me. But so long as we are always trying to do better, I think our children will forgive us. And we’ll be able to forgive ourselves, and each other.”

“I thought that might have been it,” Crowley admitted. He was having trouble looking Aziraphale in the eye, but he made the effort. “I know we talked about houseplants and parenting styles and all that, but the entire drive back all I kept thinking was that the kids were going to hate me, that Phin was going to hate me, that I’d failed you and now you were going to take them away and not let me anywhere near them. Not that they’d want to be near me.”

Aziraphale shifted guiltily. “You’re being too hard on yourself. And I know it’s partially my fault, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I’ve given you cause to doubt yourself or the affection I have for you.” He put a hand over Crowley’s where it rested on his knee. “You’re the father of my children.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“To me it does,” Aziraphale said firmly. “I’m not going to take the children away from you. Nor do I think they’d let you go without a fight.”

“Phin-“

“Is scared. His dad got angry at him. He doesn’t hate you, and neither do the others. But he needs to know that you’re not still upset at him, and that you’re sorry.” Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand. “And I can see that you are sorry.”

“So fucking sorry,” Crowley mumbled. He turned and pressed his face into Aziraphale’s coat. The angel wrapped an arm around him and stroked his back soothingly. It was probably a good thing Crowley wasn’t actually crying. He didn’t want to ruin Aziraphale’s clothes. “I know I should talk to him,” he said. “I’m just…”

“Scared?” There was the faintest trace of amusement in Aziraphale’s voice.

Crowley sniffed and laughed, straightening up and wiping at his cheeks. “Yeah. This parenting stuff’s somehow harder than the books said it would be.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Talk to him,” he advised. “I’ll sure he’ll understand. He’s a very bright child. Even if he is a handful.”

“They’re all bright,” Crowley said. “Incandescent, they are.” He swallowed hard and stood up. Aziraphale stood up with him. “I just need a minute,” Crowley said, “and then I’ll come inside. I’ll talk to Phin.”

Aziraphale nodded in understanding. He left the garage, the door swinging shut but not latching behind him.

Crowley waited until Aziraphale was clear of the massive panels of windows before he closed his eyes. He pressed his opposite thumb hard against his wedding ring until the faint imprint of feathers shaped the skin. He bit his lip and tasted blood, and he wiped his fangs clean with his tongue. He needed to get ahold of himself.

He took a few deep breaths and opened his eyes. Then he opened the garage door and made his way inside the house.

It was quiet. Crowley had expected quiet. They’d warned the children about being too loud late at night, when neighbours would be trying to sleep. But the house had never been so completely silent. It grated at Crowley like peeling scales, and his grip on the banister as he ascended the stairs was just shy of cracking the stone.

Every bedroom door on the second floor was closed. Crowley couldn’t hear anything behind them, which meant that either the children inside were holding very, very still, or they were gathered upstairs in the library.

Crowley knocked on Phinehas’s door and waited for a reply. “Phin?” he asked softly. “Can I talk to you?”

The twenty seconds it took for Phinehas to open the door were agonizing. Crowley stared down at him, feeling abruptly like he was the very small one. Phinehas’s glasses were off and his lower lip was trembling. He had a brave face on, like the other night when Crowley had given him the glasses in the first place. “Can I come in?” Crowley asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Phinehas nodded. Crowley stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The furniture would take at least a few days to come in, so the room was mostly empty. Crowley sat on the floor.

Phinehas remained standing. From his position, Crowley could see that the sunglasses occupied the only piece of furniture in the room, a small three-legged end table. His shopping bags were clustered around the bottom of it. It was an island in an impersonal sea.

“I wanted to apologize,” Crowley said. He returned his gaze to his son. “I know your father talked to you about what happened in the park, and how it wasn’t okay, so I’m not going to lecture you again.”

Phinehas relaxed slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

Crowley continued, “I yelled at you. I know it frightened you-“

“Wasn’t scared,” Phinehas mumbled. He sat down on the floor opposite Crowley.

Crowley didn’t push. “I was caught off guard, and I was angry, but those are just explanations. There’s no excuse for the way I spoke to you, and I’m sorry.”

“You are?” Phinehas regarded Crowley cautiously.

Crowley nodded. “I am. I’m so sorry, Phin. What you did was wrong, but you’re young and I’m old, and I should have known better. Can you forgive me?”

Phinehas nodded. He scooted forward and hugged Crowley. Crowley wrapped his arms around his son and pressed a kiss to his hair. He rested his chin on Phinehas’s head and closed his eyes.

“I love you so, _so_ much,” he said fiercely.

Phinehas pressed his cheek against Crowley’s chest. “Tell you a secret?” he offered eventually.

“Sure, Phin.”

“I was scared.” Phinehas’s voice was small. He closed his eyes against Crowley’s chest. “You yelled, and it sounded so bad, and it was scary.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to do it again.”

“I know. I’m going to try not to.” Crowley wished he could promise it, but he didn’t want to lie. He was going to do his absolute best, of course, but there was only so much one could do, and emotions were tricky things.

“I’m going to try to be good,” Phinehas said. He pulled away a little, still almost in Crowley’s lap, and looked up at him with earnest yellow eyes. “I don’t want to be bad.”

Crowley’s heart lurched. “You’re not bad,” he said. He stroked Phinehas’s hair, cradling the back of his head. “You’re a lot like me. You’re curious and energetic and you like to stir up excitement. That’s not a bad thing. And if you want to fly, you can fly. You just have to do it where it’s safe. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Are we good?”

Phinehas nodded. Crowley ruffled his hair and kissed Phinehas again, this time on his forehead. “Good,” he said. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

Throat suddenly tight for an entirely different reason, Crowley nodded and stood up. He left the room, closing the door behind him, and then pressed his back against it and closed his eyes. For a few long seconds, he didn’t breathe. Then, when he was ready, he went downstairs.

The houseplants quivered when he entered the study. “It’s alright,” he murmured, fumbling for the light switch and flicking it on. “Just here to water you.” He picked up the plant mister. “You should be grateful to Aziraphale, you know,” he told them as he started making the rounds. “A soft touch, he is, and he’s the one who’s got me being nice to you.”

As he worked his way around the room he continued, “I know you like him better. That’s alright. I don’t blame you, honestly. You all bloom a lot better when he’s around. Sending me a message, I think. Be nicer. I’m trying. Feels stupid, sometimes. A demon trying to be nice to houseplants. I’m not an angel, you know.

“Dad?”

Crowley started. He pressed a hand to his chest and whipped around, then relaxed. “Izzy. Did you need something, sweetheart?”

Isidora clung to the doorframe, her eyes flicking about the room and then landing on him. “You’re watering the plants?”

“Er, yeah.”

“Can I help?”

Crowley was momentarily surprised. Then he smiled and beckoned her in. He crouched and showed her the green bottle in his hand. “This is a Sainsbury’s plant mister. It’s the most efficient plant mister in the world.”

“Really?” Isidora’s eyes went wide.

“Well, I dunno,” Crowley admitted, grinning. “I think it is, anyway.”

She smiled too. Crowley handed her the bottle. “See here? You just pull the trigger and-“ He was cut off as a spurt of water nailed him in the face. Isidora’s eyes went even wider, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Crowley chuckled and wiped the water from his face. “Yeah, like that. But on the plants, sweetheart, not on me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” A few dribbles ran down his neck and onto his collar, but he didn’t mind. He hoisted her up in his arms so she could reach the spider plant hanging from the ceiling. “Go on.”

She squirted it with water.

“You’ve got to talk to them,” Crowley told her. “They bloom better when you talk.”

“Why?”

Crowley hesitated. The radio show he’d listened to had said something about oxygen and carbon dioxide, but that had sounded like a lot of hot air to Crowley. “It’s psychology,” he said eventually. “You’re making them think. Emotional growth and physical growth.”

Isidora nodded, as if that made perfect sense to her, and she misted another plant. “What do I say?” she asked.

“Er…” Crowley glanced around at the plants, who looked at him expectantly. “Just…things,” he said. “Plant things. You…encourage them the bloom. To be prettier.”

“Okay.” Crowley set Isidora down so she could get at the plants on the windowsill. She stood on her tiptoes, mister stretched up, her eyes barely level with the edge of the pots, measuring the darkness of the soil as it dampened. “I like your leaves,” she told the plant. “They’re very shiny. Do you flower? It’d be nice if you flowered. Then I could pick up the ones that fell off, and I could wear them in my hair. Wouldn’t that be pretty?”

The plant preened. Had it been capable, it would have burst into bloom right there.

Crowley smiled. “You like flowers, huh?”

“I like plants,” Isidora said plainly. “They’re nice.”

“Tell you what,” Crowley said. “When it gets a little nicer out, you can help me in the garden if you like. There’s not much to do while the snow’s still on the ground, but-“

“_Garden?_” Isidora stared at him, eyes shining. “We have a _garden_?”

Crowley smiled. “Let’s finish up in here and I’ll show you.” He’d assumed the children had gone exploring. Apparently it had not applied to outside the house.

When they had finished with the plants in the study, Crowley showed Isidora where to put the plant mister – “Feel free to water them if you like, but ask me first before you do, so we don’t overwater them, okay?” – and they then went out onto the patio. The sun had long since set, and demons could see in the dark, but angels couldn’t, so he wasn’t sure where colucumbra stood. He turned the outside lights on just in case.

Isidora’s eyes sparkled like the snow. “Not a lot blooming right now,” Crowley told her, scooping her up and balancing her on his hip. “But when spring comes, they’ll be plenty of flowers. And then in summer the vegetables start, and you can eat them right off the stalk.”

“And I can help you with it?”

“As much as you like,” Crowley promised. He rested his forehead against hers. “Next time we’re town, we can get you some gardening gloves.”

“And my own plant mister?”

Crowley laughed. “And your own plant mister.”

“Can it be pink?”

“If you like.” Crowley carried her back inside and up the stairs. He set her down on the second floor, “Alright, run along. Your father and I will be in our room if you need us.” Isidora scampered off, and Crowley made his way down the hall.

Aziraphale was in fact in their bedroom, sitting comfortably against the headrest with a book in his lap, and he smiled at Crowley when he walked in. “You seem happier.”

Crowley nodded. “I smoothed things over with Phin,” he said. “And Izzy wants to take up gardening with me.”

“So not all bad?”

“Not bad at all.” Crowley shed his clothes and deposited them on the floor, then picked them up again and moved them to the hamper at a pointed look from Aziraphale. He slid on a pair of pyjama bottoms and climbed into bed next to the angel. “I was worried, you know.”

“I know. What about this time?”

Crowley elbowed him playfully, and Aziraphale smirked. “The kids seemed to be a lot of readers,” Crowley said. “A lot of them clearly take after you. And Phinehas and Ophelia are a bit…well, it’s not _bad _that they’re so…”

“Exuberant?” Aziraphale suggested.

“Exactly. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just not the trait I was hoping to pass on, you know?”

“The way I understand it,” Aziraphale said delicately, “you’ve seemed very concerned about passing _anything_ on to our children. Your eyes, your mannerisms…”

“Yeah, well,” Crowley mumbled. “I love you. You’re so…so you, and that’s wonderful, and I wanted the kids to get as much from you as they could. I didn’t think I had many good traits to inherit.”

“You have plenty of wonderful traits to inherit,” Aziraphale said. “You’re clever and fiercely protective of yourself and the people you love. You’re good with people, you know I never got that hang out that. You believe in hard work and dedicate yourself to it a lot more than I ever have-“ Crowley opened his mouth to protest that Aziraphale was plenty hardworking, and the angel held up a finger to silence him, “We both know I would rather make other people do good of their own behalf, and it has nothing to do with it being the ‘righteous’ thing. We both did the work, but you always had more initiative. And you’re good with plants, even if occasionally you’re a little harsh on them.”

“I’m getting better.”

“I know you are,” Aziraphale said. “I’m glad Isidora is taking after you in that respect, but don’t think for a moment that that’s the only good trait any of our children have inherited from you. Even your eyes-“

“Angel-“

“I will not apologize for loving them,” Aziraphale said. “I understand the risk, of course I do. But I will never regret that some of them got your eyes.”

“Stop making speeches, angel,” Crowley mumbled, blushing. It didn’t come off half as suave as he’d hoped. “You’re being too nice to me.”

“On the contrary. I’ve said some things that were truly awful for your self-image, and I intend to spend the rest of our lives making it up to you.”

“You keep saying things like that, I’ll have to do something about it.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like kiss you,” said Crowley, and he did.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finish moving in.

People who deliver furniture are used to seeing strange houses and strange families. It’s part of the job, the same way mail carriers are used to seeing barking dogs, or hairdressers are used to seeing middle-aged women with perms. For a house in the country, the Fells’ place – it wasn’t an estate, no matter what some of the neighbours might mutter – wasn’t even all that odd. High hedgerows were common enough for the private, and massive gates and security systems for the paranoid. There were plenty of both in the country. It was a little larger and fancier than the average place, but it was hardly a palace. At least the hallways and stairs were wide and accommodating, which for anyone who has to move furniture around is a blessing.

The family was odd. There was no use denying that. It wasn’t that they were an apparently gay couple with children. That was alright by the delivery people. But the household did have a somewhat…Addams family feel to it. It wasn’t gothic, although Crowley, the one coordinating the whole thing, did appear to dress entirely in black. There was a sense of family, yes, but the whole thing felt a little usual somehow, in a way the delivery people couldn’t quite put their fingers on.

Crowley was tense. He didn’t like having so many strangers in their house, and the sooner everything was over with, the better. He’d have had the furniture dropped outside the gate and hauled it all in himself, but Aziraphale had commented on the impracticality of that in the weather, and that they could cut the time down by having the movers leave the furniture in the respective rooms and then rearrange it on their own.

The children stayed out of the way, peering over the banisters and occasionally waving at the workers as they went past. Phinehas, still mindful of the events of the previous week, kept his glasses on, his wings in, and sat on the bottom step to watch the movers carry things in. It was the stillest he’d been in the few weeks he’d been on Earth.

None of the other children had manifested wings yet, or if they had, it had not been in the presence of Crowley and Aziraphale. They’d both quietly wondered about this, but had resolved not to bring it up.

When the delivery people were finished and Crowley had sent them away and locked the gate firmly behind them, the children went scampering off to their rooms. “Don’t try to move anything without assistance,” Aziraphale had called after them. “No sense risking hurting yourselves.” He turned to Crowley, “Wasn’t Adam coming over? And Newt and Anathema? They said they’d help.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Adam had to cancel. Newt and Anathema will be over in an hour or so – they were delayed by the snow. And I called-“ He was cut off as the intercom at the gate buzzed and Brian’s cheerful face appeared in the surveillance camera, red from the cold and topped with a large winter hat. They let him in.

He stamped snow off his boots in the entry hall and shed his layers, grinning at them. “I was so glad to hear from you! Everything’s been a bit crazy since the holidays, hasn’t it?”

“It certainly has,” Aziraphale agreed. “I’m sure the children will be excited to see you.”

“Are they upstairs?” Brian asked, somehow brightening even further.

Crowley opened his mouth to answer when a flurry of feet down the stairs interrupted him. Seven sets of footsteps skidded to a halt around the first bend in the staircase, hesitating on the landing halfway between the floors. Ophelia fumbled for her sunglasses.

Brian’s eyes widened. “They’re…”

“They got rather big, we know.” Aziraphale said. He beckoned the children down. “It’s alright. It’s just Brian. You remember him? He visited a few weeks ago, when you were still small. He’s an old friend.”

The footsteps started up again, Athaliah in the lead. Crowley, who was still wearing his sunglasses from dealing with the movers, took them off and tucked them in an inner pocket. Taking that cue, Phinehas and Ophelia’s followed suit. Ephraim moved slower, peering out from the back of the pack as he slid his off and held them nervously. They stared at Brian, who stared back.

“I remember you,” Percival said eventually. “You held me.”

Brian blinked at him.

Percival blinked back. He was the only one of the children with brown eyes, and his hair was a matching, slightly shaggy sandy colour. It had a bit of a wave to it, but that was the closest he came to resembling either of his parents in appearance. Crowley had teased Aziraphale once, out of earshot of the children, “If they weren’t all born at once, I’d be tempted to ask if Percy was mine.” He did dress a bit like Crowley, though, and the miniature suit he was wearing today was modern and stylish, even if light grey was a colour Crowley wouldn’t be caught dead in.[1]

“You’re three weeks old,” Brian said.

“Yes,” Percival said. Athaliah nodded in confirmation.

Brian glanced at Crowley and Aziraphale. When neither made to comment, Brian looked back at the children, seemed to think very hard for a moment, and then said. “Alright.” He turned to Crowley and rubbed his hands together. “You said we’re moving furniture around, yeah?”

They set to work. The children insisted on helping to varying degrees: Athaliah in her ruffled dress resigned to pointing and directing them where she wanted, while Lysander could not be prevented from getting underfoot, attempting to shove things around himself. A brief scuffle broke out between Ophelia and Phinehas – the latter of whom had relaxed considerably now that Brian was an established friend – over who would get to play first on the cute indoor swing Isidora had asked for, and had only been separated when Isidora, having had quite enough, shoved Phinehas off the wooden plank and sat on it herself, wrapping her hands around the ropes and glaring at her siblings.

They were about halfway through when Newt and Anathema made it. Aziraphale went down to let them in and have a quick word with them, so by the time they ascended the stairs, ready to help move Lysander’s racecar bed into place, neither appeared entirely surprised at the gaggle of three-year-old three-week-olds running around. Newt did seem intrigued, and more than a bit relieved – he’d never been much good with babies, but small children were more up his street. Anathema appeared more cautious.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked Athaliah when she realized the little girl had been staring at her for some minutes.

Athaliah nodded. “You’re Miss Anathema,” she said primly. “Father told us about you. You visited us once, when we were small, and you’re the one who had the original book. The one from Agnes, about the history of the future. Except it’s not the future anymore because it’s gone by.”

“Er, that’s right,” Anathema said. She had the urge to crouch down to Athaliah’s level, but the young girl somehow made her feel smaller as it was.

“He likes you,” Athaliah added. “Father, I mean. He thinks you’re a nice young lady, and very smart. Although he’s worried about you taking the Book. He thinks-“

“Athaliah!” Aziraphale scolded. He smiled weakly at Anathema. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s alright.” Anathema returned his smile with a warmer one, and half a shrug. “I like to think I’ve gotten beyond that, but it is tempting. I wouldn’t mind a look later, if that’d be alright.”

“Later,” Aziraphale promised. He watched Crowley roll up his sleeves and bend over to shift a dresser with open admiration. Anathema wished she could say the same of Newt, but love as far as she was concerned was not blind. Far from it. Newt had a lovely personality, once you got past layers of awkwardness and uncertainty, and he was more than willing to defer to her opinion in most things, which Anathema liked, and he could be surprisingly passionate, which she liked even more. But Anathema would never say that Newt was exceptionally attractive. He was nice enough to look at, of course. But not from the rear.

“If you’d like to stop ogling me, angel, you could lend a hand,” Crowley called over to them. Anathema started guiltily, and Crowley shot her a bit of a wink.

“I think I’m alright,” Aziraphale said, a surprising hint of cheek in his voice. “I’d much rather watch from here.”

Crowley rolled his eyes but smiled affectionately. Anathema decided that further staring wasn’t really called for, and so she conceded to help.

With all hands on deck, it didn’t take very long to get all seven rooms sorted, and Crowley invited Brian and Newt down to the kitchen for a snack. The children decided that they’d earned one as well, and joined in, which left Aziraphale and Anathema headed to Aziraphale’s study.

It was tidier than the last time Anathema had seen it. Not that it had been untidy before, but the cards were no longer tacked to the wall and scattered across the table. The boxes of notes had been tucked away into a shelving unit, and the Book sat in a lovingly dusted display case on top. “I know your family took very good care of the original,” Aziraphale said when he noticed her eyes drawn to it, “but I am a bit of a worrywart, and with seven children in the house, many of whom like to read, I thought it would be best to keep it protected. There is of course the selfish reason as well.” He flushed. “Being covetous is not an angelic quality, but in this instance I’m afraid I couldn’t help it. I shall always envy you, my dear, for possessing the original copy.” In this he was referring both to the first book and its sequel and had taken great pains to temper his seething anger at them having burned. It was a good thing, he was always quick to remind himself, but after the Alexandria debacle he’d found his reaction to burning knowledge could be quite strong if he did not take care. Fortunately, as an angel, taking care was in his nature.

He unlocked the case and withdrew the book, then laid it carefully on the desk. Anathema trailed her hand reverently over the cover. She’d handled it once before, of course, but there was that same thrill all the same. She opened it to a random page.

**[1732]: From serpent’s mouth spring flight, and from serpent’s tongue drip rage, but honey soothe and spade call and all be right again.**

She turned the page, then glanced up at Aziraphale. “How many have you sussed out, do you think?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Not as many as I would like, I’m afraid. It is Agnes, after all. She does like to be specific in the vaguest of ways. It’s always difficult to tell until after it’s come to pass.”

Anathema nodded knowingly. She hesitated and bit her lip. “Do you mind leaving a minute? It’s just, I got used to it just being me and the book, and I was hoping…”

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “Just return it to the case when you’re done.”

“Promise I won’t snitch it,” Anathema managed to tease. “Unlike a certain someone I could mention.”

“Really, now,” Aziraphale pretended to be put out. “I hardly stole the thing. I think you’ll find you left it in the car, after all.” He winked at her and closed the door.

Anathema settled behind the desk, sinking into the chair and getting comfortable. She’d sworn off prophecy, of course, but these prophecies didn’t really apply to her. And she had missed spending time with Agnes in this manner. She turned back to the beginning and, without the frantic haste of last time, began to read.

Aziraphale made his way downstairs and found his family in the kitchen. The children sat in clusters on the floor, clutching biscuits and munching happily. Crowley, Brian, and Newt stood around the island, leaning against it and drinking tea as they chatted about, from the sound of it, the weather clearing up.

“Still got a couple months to go before a proper thaw,” Crowley was saying, “but I really am looking forward to getting out into the yard again.”

“The trees in the back are fruit trees, aren’t they?” Brian asked. “Going to be growing any apples, do you think?”

“They’re crab apples,” Crowley said. He glanced at Aziraphale as he came in, and wordlessly slid a mug of cocoa across the island. “Growing is tricky with them, and they’re not really for eating. Mostly they just make a mess.”

Aziraphale picked up the cup of cocoa and cradled it between his hands, appreciating the warmth. He took a sip. It was perfectly made.

“You’ve got that little pond,” Newt said. “Could teach the kids to skate, maybe?”

Percival looked up in interest. Unlike the other children, he had a mug of black tea instead of cocoa.

“Maybe.” Crowley sounded hesitant. “It’s a bit small for skating, and I’m not sure it’s frozen all the way through.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Aziraphale said. He smiled and needled, “I think you’re just concerned about looking foolish on skates yourself.”

Crowley turned red. “Not my fault I was never any good at skating. I’m fine with both feet on solid ground, thank you very much.”

“I’d like to learn to skate,” Percival said. The adults looked down at him. He shifted on the floor. “I think it’d be interesting.”

“I can teach you!” Brian piped up. He looked beseechingly at Crowley and Aziraphale. “I’m actually not bad. Used to have my own skates and everything. I could probably dig them out.”

Crowley relented. “Alright. But safety first. If that ice starts cracking, I want you off it.”

“Deal.”

Crowley looked at the rest of the children. “What about you lot? Any interest?”

There was some quiet contemplation and a bit of murmuring. Athaliah wrinkled her nose. “Seems a bit wet, what with all the snow.”

“It’s only wet if you fall down,” Isidora pointed out. “Not sure I want to, though. I don’t like the snow all that much.”

“Well, I want to learn,” Phinehas said. “It’d be wicked, zooming around like that.” He stood up and slid across the kitchen tiles in his socks like he was skating, making whooshing sounds for effect.

Crowley caught him round the middle and scooped him up, turning him around towards the door. “If you’re going to go sock skating, do it in the front hall. It’s too crowded in here.”

Phinehas darted amicably out the door, trailing biscuit crumbs in his wake. Ophelia and Lysander rushed after him, tripping over each other and shoving good-naturedly as they skidded after their brother.

“Anathema still upstairs?” Newt asked Aziraphale, taking advantage of the lull in conversation.

He nodded. “I’ve given her some time with the book.”

“Is that wise?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale glared at him, “I don’t think she’s going to steal it, if that’s what you’re implying.”

Crowley raised his hands in surrender. “Not what I meant, angel. I just know you were worried about her getting all prophecy-obsessed again.”

“That sounds a bit harsh,” Aziraphale said.

“Not entirely off the mark, though,” Newt admitted. “But I reckon she’ll be okay. And she did look at the prophecies over Christmas without feeling like she ought to go back for another look.”

“She’d a very mature young woman,” Aziraphale agreed. “Very sensible. I wouldn’t have trusted her with the book if I didn’t think she was more than capable of handling herself.”

“I like Miss Anathema,” Athaliah cut in. She licked biscuit icing from her fingers. “She seems very nice.”

“She looks at us funny,” Isidora pointed out.

“She’s looking at our auras,” Percival said. “She can read them, can’t she? She’s never seen a colucumbra aura, has she? Must look interesting to her.”

That thought had occurred to Aziraphale as well. Admittedly, he knew very little about auras, and he hadn’t wanted to ask, but he did hope that whatever Anathema was seeing was good.[2]

“Still ought not to look at us funny,” Isidora mumbled.

“I like her anyway,” Athaliah said. She scrutinized Newt, who shifted under her intense gaze. “You be nice to her, because if you’re not, bad things ought to happen to you.” She narrowed her eyes.

“I-I try,” Newt stammered.

Crowley laughed. “Alright, Atty, leave the man alone. Newt’s harmless, and Anathema loves him.” He had, at times, wondered why. Anathema could probably do a great deal better than Newt. But he’d grown on Crowley, and the demon had come to quite like him anyway.

Athaliah sniffed and returned to her biscuits. She broke her last one in half and gave the other half to Ephraim.

Anathema poked her head into the kitchen. “You know your children are sliding around your front hall?”

“They’re skating,” Crowley informed her.

“Oh.” Anathema joined them at the island. “What’d I miss?”

“Not much, really,” Newt said, with a nervous glance towards Athaliah. “Brian’s going to teach the kids to ice skate.”

“Really? That’s nice.”

Brian puffed up with pride. Percival smiled and finished off his tea, then took a sip of Phinehas’s abandoned cocoa and made a face before pushing it away again.

“Did you get everything you were hoping too out of the book?” Aziraphale asked.

Anathema nodded. “It’s nice to get to see Agnes’s work again. Bit like a family reunion.” She hugged Newt’s arm, resting her chin on his shoulder. “We ought to be going soon, I think.”

“You’re sure we can’t tempt you to stay for dinner?” Aziraphale asked. “I’ve gotten quite good with the oven.”

“We’re sure,” Newt said. “My parents have asked us round for dinner. We really do need to head out if we want to get there in time.”

They bid the pair farewell. Brian was more reluctant to leave, and only did so after promising Percival that he’d be back soon with skates and ready to teach. And then the house was quiet again. Or, at least, as quiet as it ever got with seven children.

“It’s been a good day,” Aziraphale decided after the children had settled into their respective rooms or the library for the night. “The house is finally all set up, which means no more strangers traipsing through it, so you’ll be pleased.” Crowley grunted in grudging affirmation. “And the visit went well. I was a little worried how everyone might react to the children’s aging, but if those three are any sign, I think it’ll be alright.”

“We’ve got good friends, angel,” Crowley pointed out. “Pretty sure it’d take a bit more than that to faze them.” Like an apocalypse, for example.

“Still,” Aziraphale said. “Everything seems to be running smoothly, doesn’t it?”

“Sure,” Crowley agreed. Everything did appear to be going okay. Which was, in Crowley’s experience, about when things started to take a turn for the worse. But that was probably just the demon in him speaking. Hell didn’t have a clue. Everything was probably fine.

[1] Or discorperated, he supposed. It was a dreadful colour on him. Washed him out and made him look a bit like a walking corpse. Better to stick to black.

[2] Anathema had been surprised at the children’s auras. They’d been bright and expansive and colourful, as an aura ought to be, but they’d also had multiple layers, which was something Anathema had never seen before. The sunny topside had darker light bleeding through underneath. Anathema put it down to their heritage and hoped it wasn’t anything to be concerned about.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale have a visitor.

Aziraphale was in the library, half-reading a book and half-watching Athaliah reading one of her own across the room, when the intercom buzzed insistently. It beeped three times at steady intervals, and then increased in pace until it became apparent that whoever was pressing the button was most likely doing so repeatedly and impatiently. He sighed and set the book aside. Athaliah looked up, and he smiled briefly and shook his head, indicating to her that he would take care of it. Then he went downstairs.

Crowley intercepted him in the front hall. “It’s the front gate,” he told him. “I just checked the monitors. And you’re never going to guess who it is.”

Aziraphale didn’t, and he actually blinked in surprise when Crowley told him. “I’ll handle it,” he said. “Why don’t you stay here, keep an eye on the children. Ah, just in case?”

Crowley nodded, leaving Aziraphale to exchange his slippers for a pair of boots, tromping through the snow until he reached the gate, which swung open at his command. He smiled pleasantly, if a bit warily, at the young woman on the other side. “Hello, Elizabeth. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Her arms were folded. Her face was stormy. “I want to talk.”

“By all means.” He made no move to let her in, nor did she attempt to pass him. They stared at one another. Finally, Aziraphale asked, “Have you spoken to Pepper recently? Last I heard-“

“I haven’t talked to her. I want to talk to you.”

“So you said.” Aziraphale’s smile took on slightly colder overtones. “What would you like to say?”

“You’re an angel.”

“Yes.”

“You’re married to a demon.”

“In human terms, yes, although the reality is somewhat more complex.”

“And Christmas…?”

“I went into labour and had my children. I apologize for the distress it might have caused you.”

“Distress?” Elizabeth’s voice spiked, and she let out a hysterical laugh. “Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, it’s all real, and you want to apologize for causing me _distress?_ Do you have any idea what it’s like to find that out?”

Aziraphale blinked. In his experience, which was admittedly somewhat limited, humans had a way of compartmentalizing that enabled them to take the revelation of the divine in stride or, at least, in quiet, happy denial.

Elizabeth took his silence to continue, “She told me _everything_, about Adam and the apocalypse, and- and-“ She took a deep breath. “How exactly am I supposed to justify all of this? I don’t even think I believe in it, and you’re telling me it’s all real?”

Something melted in Aziraphale, sympathy washing over him. The poor dear was clearly in more agony than he’d realized, and he found himself unable to blame her, even knowing how upset Pepper was over the whole thing. He took a step back and gestured her in. “Why don’t you come inside? I’ll make you some cocoa, and we can have a chat.”

Slowly, as if her feet were moving automatically, even as her mind was stuck in place, Elizabeth followed him into the house. She stopped dead as he guided her into the kitchen, staring at Lysander, who was seated in the middle of the floor and looked like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar, which was precisely what he was.

“Take those upstairs,” Aziraphale told him gently, nodding towards the biscuit tin. Lysander slowly withdrew his hand from it and clutched it to his chest. He watched Elizabeth as he got to his feet, and Aziraphale nudged him gently towards the door. “Share them with your siblings,” he called after, and then bustled to the stove as the door swung shut. “This will just take a moment,” he said over his shoulder.

Elizabeth took a heavy seat on one of the stools. “That was…”

“Lysander,” Aziraphale told her. “One of my children.”

“And he’s…”

“Nearly a month old, now.”

“Yours?”

“And Crowley’s. We call them colucumbra. As far as we’re aware, they’re the only ones in existence. Marshmallows?”

She blinked, and then nodded, and Aziraphale set a cup in front of her before taking a seat with his own mug. “Now,” he said firmly, but not unkindly, “shall we talk?”

Elizabeth stared at him. With some hesitation, she wrapped both hands around her mug of cocoa and took a sip, wincing as it burned her tongue. Aziraphale waited for her to speak.

Eventually, she said softly, “It’s just a lot.”

“It is,” he agreed. “It’s something of a burden on you, I’m sure.”

“I just…” She took another gulp of cocoa, in spite of the heat. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it, you know? I grew up religious, and I got the whole ‘you’re going to burn in Hell’ speech-“

“You won’t,” Aziraphale said. He blew on his own mug and then lifted it to his lips. When he set it back down again, he added, “It’s a gross misinterpretation. No one goes to Hell for being gay.”

“That’s…good.”

Aziraphale hummed in agreement. He smiled, a little sadly. “I wish I could provide more comfort for you. I wish I could tell you that it was all going to be alright, that when you die you’ll go to Heaven and be happy for eternity. But I can’t. I can’t know that. No angel can.”

“What if I’m not religious?”

He laughed. “We won’t hold it against you, I assure you. It’s not unreasonable to be sceptical, considering the circumstances. Free will, and all. And it is a big universe. I personally don’t see anything wrong with having faith, even if it isn’t in us.” He laughed again, with a little more embarrassment, “But then, I’m hardly a stellar excuse for an angel, so what I think may not account for much.”

“Have you and Crowley really been here since the beginning?”

“The whole time. It’s been quite amazing, watching humans learn and grow.”

“So evolution is out, then?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Things still grow and change. Nothing remains stagnant forever.”

Elizabeth nodded, like that made sense to her. She drummed her fingers on the counter. She was, if nothing else, a good deal calmer now. It was hard not to be calm; some combination of the cocoa and Aziraphale’s presence had that effect.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Aziraphale murmured after a moment, “but Pepper wouldn’t have told you without reason. She cares for you a great deal.”

“I know. And I love her. It’s not her fault, all of this. But part of me hates that she brought me into it, you know?”

“I know.” Aziraphale reached out and patted the back of her hand before withdrawing. “She resisted the idea of telling you. She was worried how you might take it. She didn’t want to lose you.”

“I’ve been awful to her, haven’t I?” Elizabeth stared miserably into her cocoa.

Aziraphale hesitated. “You haven’t been kind,” he admitted, with some reluctance. “But your reaction was understandable. Sometimes these things take time to wrap your head around.”

“Can I ask,” she began, and then stopped. Aziraphale waited, and she began again, “Your kid…kids?”

“Plural, yes. We have seven of them.”

“Seven,” she repeated, and then shook her head. “Um, about them. How…I mean…”

“It’s a recent development. It used to be impossible for angels or demons to reproduce. Now, well. Now Crowley and I are doing our best to be good parents.”

“They’re half demon?”

Aziraphale fixed her with a pointed look. “You of all people should understand that the human habit of ‘demonization’ is often misdirected.”

She blushed. “Right. Sorry.”

“To answer your question, yes. They are biologically his children, and therefore half demon. Half angel, as well.”

“Right.” Elizabeth nodded and sat back a little. Her mug was almost empty.

Gently, Aziraphale suggested, “Would you like to meet them?”

Elizabeth straightened up, her eyes widening. “I…”

Aziraphale stood up and offered out his hand. “It’s alright,” he told her. “They’re just children. I think you might find it reassuring.”

She hesitated a moment longer, and then nodded. “Okay.” She followed him out of the kitchen.

Crowley was lounging at the top of the stairs, leaning against the railing on the second landing. He made no effort to pretend he hadn’t been eavesdropping. Deliberately, he removed his glasses and tucked them into his shirt collar, raising his eyebrows as he met Elizabeth’s gaze head-on. She swallowed hard, and glanced back at Aziraphale, then turned to Crowley. As they came level with him they stopped. Crowley gave Elizabeth a second more of his attention, and then looked to Aziraphale. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t want her to upset the kids.”

Elizabeth stiffened, but then the fight drained out of her. Crowley had a point; she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t say or do something to upset the colucumbra, even if she was trying to keep an open mind. For his part, Crowley was conflicted. He’d liked Elizabeth before, and she had been good for Pepper. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t put himself between her and his family if he thought there was half a chance of something bad happening.

Aziraphale put his hand on Crowley’s arm. “It’ll be alright,” he murmured. He smiled at Elizabeth. “Right, my dear?”

“Right,” she echoed, although she looked doubtful, and more than a little nervous. Aziraphale nodded in satisfaction, and at Crowley’s gesture disappeared into one of the bedrooms. Elizabeth made to follow. Crowley’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. She looked up at him. He was a good few inches taller than her, so she had to crane her neck slightly, and even without the snake eyes the serious look on his face would have made her freeze. But for all his expression was stony, his voice was surprisingly soft.

“I would do anything for my children, understand?”

“I…yes, sir.”

Crowley ignored the honorific. “Whatever you might think of me, don’t take it out on them. They’re kids. They didn’t choose their parents. They didn’t choose to be half demon. And they’re good kids. They don’t deserve someone coming in with misinformation, hating them just for existing.”

“I don’t hate them. I don’t even know them.”

“You don’t know me, either.”

“I don’t hate you.” She wasn’t sure she had. She’d been nervous, even a little angry, when she’d found out he was a demon. She’d raged at Pepper for trusting one, for not telling her and putting her under his roof. There had to be something innately evil about that, she was sure.

He didn’t feel evil now. He hadn’t felt evil before, but he definitely didn’t now. His hand burned on his shoulder, but his expression was sincere, if a little guarded. He looked like what he was, and in that moment, what he was was not a demon. Not a monster. He was a parent, plain and simple.

Aziraphale poked his head out of the bedroom. “Coming?”

“Just a minute,” Crowley said. He didn’t break eye contact with Elizabeth, but he did let her go. She stayed where she was.

When Aziraphale’s head disappeared again, she said quietly, “It’s hard not to be a hypocrite, isn’t it?” He tilted his head, but the smallest smile broke out at the corners of his mouth. She clarified, “I say I don’t really believe, or at least that I don’t believe in the church, because if I believed them then I’d have to believe that I was a monster too.”

Aziraphale might have said that not all church were like that. Crowley did not.

She shook her head and continued, “But I was willing to do it to you, wasn’t I? Because I was scared, and angry, and I didn’t understand.”

“People do a lot of terrible things when they’re scared and angry, confronted by things they don’t understand.” There was an edge to Crowley’s voice, but it wasn’t directed at her.

“I still don’t think I understand,” she admitted. “But I’m not angry anymore.”

“Scared?”

“Terrified.” She grinned, suddenly, nonsensically, and he grinned back.

He jerked his head towards his daughter’s bedroom door. “Come on.” He pushed the door open and gestured her in.

Elizabeth crossed the threshold. Aziraphale stood a little to the side, and Isidora stopped pushing Ephraim on the swing in favour of staring at her. Elizabeth faltered momentarily, taking in the young boy’s eyes, but then she looked back to Crowley, who cocked an eyebrow, and turned back, smiling at the children. She approached them and knelt, because it seemed like the right thing to do. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Elizabeth.”

Isidora smoothed down the ruffles on her dress and flounced protectively in front of her brother. She stuck out her chin, watching the stranger with wary eyes. “I’m Isidora,” she pronounced. “And this is Ephraim. Father said you’re Miss Pepper’s girlfriend.”

“That’s right.”

“You didn’t come to visit us when Miss Pepper came.”

Elizabeth hesitated. She smiled ruefully. “No, I didn’t. We had a fight.”

“Did you apologize?”

“Not yet. But I will.”

“Dad makes Phinehas and Lee Lee apologize when they fight. It makes people feel bad.” She squinted slightly. “Did you make Miss Pepper feel bad?”

Elizabeth turned scarlet. She hadn’t expected to be grilled by a month-old, even one who looked like a toddler. “I did,” she admitted. “And I’m very sorry. I’m going to tell her that.”

“You should.” Isidora nodded emphatically. “I like Miss Pepper. She should be happy always.”

“I think so too.”

Ephraim peered out from around his sister, who stepped back and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He studied her for a moment, sucking on his lower lip, and then asked, “Will you push me on the swing?”

Elizabeth smiled and straightened up. “Of course!”

“But not too high.”

“I won’t.” She looked to Isidora, who hesitated, and then stepped away from her brother, arms folded across her chest. She watched like a hawk as Elizabeth stepped around to the back of the swing and pulled it back, then released it. Ephraim clung to the ropes, and a grin split his face. Isidora relaxed, and smiled too, although she did not stop watching.

Crowley came over to stand by Aziraphale, who leaned into his husband automatically. Turning his head so he could speak directly into Aziraphale’s ear, Crowley murmured, “I think she’ll be alright. She and Pepper will talk it out, and then we’ll have a new babysitter on the roster.”

“She does seem quite taken with them,” Aziraphale responded, as Elizabeth gently teased Ephraim, who laughed in delight and kicked his legs, skirt whooshing around his ankles as she pushed him a little higher. “Brian will be disappointed.”

“Ophelia will love roller derby.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley in horror. Crowley grinned back. Aziraphale shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. It’s _dangerous_.”

“She’ll be fine.” Crowley waved it off, and then took Aziraphale’s hands. “I’m _teasing, _angel. Besides, she’s way too young for that. Could take her to a match, though.”

Aziraphale hesitated, and Crowley bumped their shoulders together. “Just think about it. We’ve got time.”

Across the room, Ephraim leaned forward too far, and with a yelp, tumbled from the swing. Wings burst from his back, but even they could not slow his crash entirely. Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and Crowley made to dart for him, but before either could move Isidora caught him neatly, bowled over backwards by the momentum, but entirely unharmed as she fell back against the floor. She sat up and hugged Ephraim, who was shaking slightly. Elizabeth looked horrified. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“

“It’s alright,” Crowley cut her off. “It wasn’t your fault. Anyway, he’s fine. See?”

Already, Ephraim was on his feet again, darting out of the room as Isidora chased after him, both children giggling with excitement. Elizabeth sat down on the swing with a sigh of relief. Aziraphale sat too, although on a chair – white to match Isidora’s desk and almost comically too small for him, which had a rather endearing result – and smiled kindly. “So, what do you think?”

“They’re good kids,” Elizabeth nodded, looking at Crowley. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“I barged into your house looking to pick a fight. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t want me anywhere near your kids.”

“And we wouldn’t have, if I thought you were really a threat to them.” Aziraphale rested his hands on his knees. “Do you feel better now?”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t forget,” Crowley said, “you’ve promised Isidora that you’re going to apologize to Pepper.” He raised his eyebrows significantly. “You’re not going to break it, are you?”

“Definitely not.” Elizabeth shook her head and smiled. “I’ll call her after I leave.”

“Good.” Crowley leaned back on his hips, satisfied.

“You’re welcome to stay for dinner, if you like,” Aziraphale offered. “You can meet the other children.”

Elizabeth looked around the bedroom. She ran her fingers up and down the ropes of the swing. Then she looked back at Crowley and Aziraphale. “I think I’d like that.” She was still smiling.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Athaliah has some concerns.

Athaliah was troubled. Month-old children are often troubled, given that at that age, everything is new and therefore everything that happens to you in the worst, most painful, most frightening thing you have ever encountered.[1] However, unlike most month-old children, Athaliah was a colucumbra, and therefore did not exhibit her troubled state in the standard way, by means of crying, wailing, howling, or generally making a ruckus. Instead, Athaliah was reflective.

She was in her bedroom. More specifically, she was on the balcony of her bedroom. Still too short to lean over the railing, she had resolved to peer through it, her fingers curled tight around the columns in spite of the winter chill, her lower lip tucked thoughtfully between her teeth. She was watching the cluster of figures below, standing at the edge of the frozen pond situated towards the back of the yard, just in front of the small cluster of crab apple trees. The tallest of the figures, Brian, was bent low, helping Percival and Lysander lace their skates, while behind him, Phinehas and Ophelia made a great show of pushing and shoving one another, teetering unsteadily on their own blades. A brief knock on her bedroom door disturbed her, but she cast it hardly a glance before returning her attention below, calling “come in” over her shoulder.

The door opened, then closed. Footsteps started across the room, paused at the door to the balcony, and then came up beside her. Her father did not crouch, but leaned slightly against the railing beside her, resting his hands atop it. She glanced up at him, and his gaze too was fixed on the ground below. It was only after she followed it that he spoke.

“You could join them, you know,” said Aziraphale. “You never know. You might enjoy it.”

Athaliah’s brow furrowed. She sucked on her lip a little harder before releasing it. “I don’t want to.”

“Athaliah.” Aziraphale sighed. He turned to his daughter, who stared passively back up at him. “You’ve been hiding away in your room all day. Is something the matter?”

“No.”

He waited a heartbeat. “I’ve found a collection of Greek poetry in the library that still needs translating. Would you like to help?”

The answer, like the one before, was instantaneous. “No.”

He tried again. “I could make you some cocoa, if you like.”

“No, thank you.” She sounded like she was hardly listening.

Aziraphale hesitated, and then said, a with a little more insistence, “I believe Ephraim and Isidora are with your dad in the study. Why don’t you see what they’re up to?”

Athaliah shook her head. Her voice remained level, and added a layer of frost to the air as she insisted, “I’ll stay here.”

Aziraphale fought the urge to sigh again. He gave his daughter a worried look, but murmured, “If you’re sure.” He turned, pausing in the doorway, and when Athaliah did not so much as glance at him, he left the room. Downstairs, as he passed the study door, Crowley lifted his head to meet Aziraphale’s gaze. Aziraphale shook his head. A frown creased Crowley’s features, but then Isidora tugged on his sleeve, and his attention returned to his children.

Athaliah stayed on the balcony, although after her father had left she sank to her knees, her flouncy skirt pooling around her legs in puddles of lace and tulle. She rested her hands in her lap and bowed her head, squeezing her eyes shut.

Behind her, without so much as a knock, her bedroom door opened a sliver, and then was closed softly. Equally quiet footsteps padded across her floor, and then stopped at the open balcony door. Athaliah did not need to open her eyes to know who it was. She could sense her family’s auras blindfolded in a crowded room. Still, she looked at him, Ephraim’s baby blue eyes huge and staring back as he clung to the doorframe shyly. Crowley had sent out the big guns.

With a sigh, Athaliah patted her lap, and Ephraim wandered over. They might have been two of septuplets, but the apparent age discrepancy was even more visible as he plopped down on the edge of her skirt and cuddled into her side; Athaliah looked oldest and tallest, while Ephraim was several inches shorter, with an exacerbated, baby fat version of Aziraphale’s chubby, cherubic cheeks. “You’re sad,” he mumbled into her shoulder. She wrapped an arm around him.

“I’m not sad,” she told him.

“Did I make you sad?”

“No!” she shushed him immediately, squeezing him tight. She rested her forehead against his curls. He smelled soft and warm, and she inhaled for a long moment. Then she said, “I’m not sad. I’m…” She grasped for the word, but even a well-read, knowledgeable child is still a child, and emotions are things that even well-read, knowledgeable, and much more experienced adults often fail to quantify. It escaped her, and she shook her head.

“You don’t want to play.”

“No,” she admitted. Not if playing meant being shoved around by Phinehas and Ophelia. Not if it meant tottering and tumbling on skates or racing through the halls or jumping or swinging. She did not want to play. She wanted to sit, quietly, maybe with a book in the library with Aziraphale, or in the living room watching soaps with Crowley. And that was a problem.

“I’m sorry I don’t want to play with you,” she said softly. “I want to, but…” But there was something wrong with her. She had thought it was alright. Percival liked to sit in the library with her and read. Ephraim liked to curl up by her side, like he did now, and just sit and cuddle. But Ephraim also ran and chased and laughed with Isidora. Percival eagerly put aside his books for skating lessons with Brian. And she just sat there, staring, wondering why she couldn’t do the same.

“You don’t have to play,” Ephraim mumbled. “Not if you don’t want to.” He blinked up at her. His tiny brow was furrowed, his snake-slit eyes big as ever. It was a face that inspired trust. “Is that why you’re sad? Because you don’t want to play?”

“It’s not fair.” Her lower lip trembled, and she sucked it in again in an effort to quell the motion. She blinked quickly. The chill stung at her eyes, making them water. “I’m _wrong._”

Ephraim _stared_, his mouth slightly agape, his eyebrows disappearing into his mop of curls. His voice quavered. “Wrong?”

“I shouldn’t be like this. It’s not right.”

Ephraim hesitated, copying her motion, sucking on his lower lip. He didn’t get the same reassurance from it, and so he stopped. “Are…are we all wrong?”

Athaliah opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Her throat felt very tight and her chest hurt. “I don’t think so,” she said eventually. “It’s just me.”

Ephraim hugged her a little tighter. “I don’t think you’re wrong. I love you.”

“I love you too.” She kissed the top of her brother’s head and squeezed back. “Go back now. Before they miss you.”

“_I _miss you.” Ephraim stood, and held out two chubby hands. Athaliah took them, allowing Ephraim to guide her to her feet. She was powerless to stop him tugging her gently down the stairs.

Crowley had Isidora with him in the study, holding her up so she could tend to the plants hanging from the ceiling. He grinned when they entered, and set her down. “Hey, Atty. Glad you could join us.” The note of relief in his voice was almost imperceptible, and so the children missed it. “Want to help with the plants?”

“That’s alright.” She pushed Ephraim forward a little. “I’ll just sit here, if that’s alright.” She climbed up, with some effort, into one of the armchairs in the corner, tucking her knees to her chest so she resembled a small but fluffy tiered cake. She wrapped her arms around her legs and shook out her hair so it wouldn’t get caught, the dark locks half-obscuring her view as she rested her chin atop her knees. Crowley’s worried look returned, but he said nothing, just picked up Isidora again when she knocked his calf with her pink, plastic plant mister. Ephraim cast one last look at his sister, a tiny frown creasing his forehead, and then he toddled over to help.

It took a few minutes, by which time Isidora was done with the plants and had moved on to sitting on Crowley’s lap, her nose buried in one of his gardening books, but eventually Athaliah relaxed, leaning back in the chair and curling her knees under her, content to simply watch and think. Ephraim had tucked himself into Crowley’s side, two fingers stuck in his mouth to suck on as he looked at the pictures in the book. This was better. This was what she liked. She didn’t even need a book of her own; it soothed her just to know that things were quiet.

Aziraphale popped his head in to check on them, and smiled when he saw her. “Athaliah. I’m glad you came down.”

She shrugged. The lump was building up in her throat again. She hesitated, and then asked, “Do you still want help with the book? The Greek one?”

“If you’d like.”

She lowered herself from the armchair, and with a faint smile to Ephraim, who had looked up to watch the exchange, she left the study.

As they ascended the stairs to the third floor, she asked, “Do you think something’s wrong with me?”

Aziraphale stopped dead, halfway to the landing, his heart ceasing to beat. Athaliah stopped too, several steps up, when she realized he was no longer following. Aziraphale swallowed twice, trying to find his voice, and finally managed, “Why would you even think that?”

She bit her lip. “I’m not…like the others. I don’t act right.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“They act like children.”

“They are children.” Admittedly very intelligent children, but children nonetheless.

“But I don’t.” Athaliah sat down on the stairs, chin in her hands. “I don’t like the things they do. I don’t like to play like them. Is that wrong?”

Aziraphale’s heart broke a little, and he sighed. He came up to sit beside her. “There’s nothing wrong with you, my darling. Nothing at all.”

“But…”

“You all grew up so fast,” Aziraphale murmured. “Too fast, perhaps. But there’s no wrong way to be a child, Athaliah. You’re exploring this world your own way. That’s all that matters.”

She looked up at him, and he smiled down. After a moment, she said, “I feel left out. When everyone is playing. Sometimes it’s okay, and sometimes it hurts.”

“You can’t control the actions of others,” Aziraphale told her. “But if it upsets you, if you feel left out, maybe try being a part of it. I know,” he said, when she frowned and opened her mouth, “you said you didn’t have much interest in the activities, but you’re interested in your siblings, aren’t you? You like spending time with them?”

She nodded.

“Then sometimes you might have to make allowances. Would you rather do something that’s not your first choice but means you can spend time with your family, or would you rather sit and be unhappy alone?” He brushed a long, black curl out of her face, and then stroked her back. “It’s a very grown-up choice to make, I’m afraid.”

Athaliah considered it. “I don’t mind being alone sometimes,” she said at length. “It can be nice. But I like it when I’m not alone too.”

“And that’s alright.” Aziraphale smiled, and kissed her forehead. “It’s something to think about, is all.” He stood up. “Now. Would you like to come to the library with me, and let’s see if we can’t translate that book, hmm?”

Athaliah stood too, and smoothed down her dress. Her brow was furrowed. She was thinking very hard. Then she looked up at Aziraphale. “No, thank you,” she said, very deliberately. “I think I’ll go outside with the others, if that’s alright.”

Aziraphale’s smile softened. “Of course. There are skates by the back door, if you’d like them.”

“I think for now I’d just like to watch.” She started downstairs, and then turned back. “Can we do the book another time?”

“Of course, my dear.”

She smiled, and then continued on her way, exchanging her flats for snow boots at the door, and then tromping out to meet them. A human would have been cold, especially in a dress like hers, but Athaliah was not a human, and she was quite comfortable.

Brian looked up and grinned as she approached the edge of the pond. “Glad you could join us!” he called out to her, skating over and stopping in a small spray of snow and ice chips.

Athaliah stopped at the edge and surveyed the scene. Ophelia and Phinehas seemed to have called a truce. They were no longer tussling; the latter seemed to be trying to lap the small pond as quickly as possible, while the former skated in smaller but more determined circles, stumbling every so often on a chip in the ice. Lysander and Percival moved more slowly, clinging to each other in an effort to stay upright. However, before Athaliah could respond to Brian with her intent to watch, Ophelia whooshed over to her, nearly tumbling into a fall twice in her haste, and snagged Athaliah’s hands. She was out on the ice, stumbling forward to avoid tripping, before she could get a word in edgewise.

The ice was slippery, even beneath her snow boots. Athaliah skidded, unable to get traction, as Ophelia dragged her towards the centre of the pond with both hands. It was all Athaliah could do to hold on, unfamiliar with the wind rushing in her ears. Over it, Ophelia crowed, “You came!”

“I-“

“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Despite being the smaller or the two – although not by much – Ophelia whirled them in a circle. Her movements were surprisingly graceful for one so new to skates; Athaliah’s were less so, even in boots. “Phin’s being a big meany about it.” Ophelia stuck out her tongue at their brother as he passed, and he returned the gesture. She snorted. “He just wants to trip me and push me.”

“You started it!” Phinehas hollered back. He swerved from his course, nearly barrelling them over as he skidded to a stop in front of them and planted his hands on his hips, chin stuck out defiantly. “You pushed me first!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

And they were at it again, Athaliah toppling backwards as Ophelia let go of her hand suddenly in favour of grappling with Phinehas. She landed on the ice with a thump, startling a yelp out of her, as Brian hurried over to break up the fight, scolding them about the dangers of wrestling with blades strapped to their feet.

A hand on her shoulder startled Athaliah, and she looked up. Percival and Lysander had managed to hobble over, and were looking at her expectantly. It was Percival’s hand touching her, but Lysander who offered his out for her to take, and with only minimal struggle the two brothers managed to help her to her feet.[2] “You’re not wearing skates,” Percival observed. He’d put a sensible coat on, but like Athaliah Lysander was in short sleeves under his overalls.

Athaliah patted down the skirt of her dress. “I didn’t mean to come on the ice. I just wanted to watch.”

Percival nodded, like this was a sensible decision – and with Brian still locked in a pseudo-wrestling match with two obstinate colucumbra, perhaps it was. “Do you need help?”

She hesitated, and then nodded. Without further prompting, Lysander took one of her arms, and Percival the other. Much slower than Ophelia had dragged her out, they guided her back to the edge.

She stood in the snow, hugging her body as they slid back a few shaky steps. “You sure you just want to watch?” Lysander asked. “It’s fun, I promise.”

“I’m sure,” she said, and she smiled. She even giggled when Lysander skated backwards, showing off, and tripped over his own feet and went down in a tangle of limbs. Percival rolled his eyes and helped him up, and the two went off together again, with Lysander occasionally darting off ahead of his brother until a spill allowed Percival to catch up.

Eventually, Brian shepherded the flock of them back to the house, explaining with a laugh that colucumbra might not need to sleep, but humans did, and it was starting to get dark, and he ought to be getting home. He kept a relaxed eye on Phinehas and Ophelia, who were still shoving each other, although more amicably now, and the lot of them tromped to the house, where Aziraphale was waiting with mugs of cocoa for everyone, except Percival, who got tea. “Were they good for you?” he asked Brian, who gave a laugh and a shrug. On the floor, mugs of cocoa clutched between their tiny hands, Ophelia and Phinehas stared up at their father, angelically.

“They were fine,” Brian said, amusement clear in his voice. “I’d love to come out and do it again sometime. With a few lessons, I bet they’d get pretty good at it.”

“What do we say to Brian?” Aziraphale asked his children, and a chorus of ‘thank yous’ rang back. He smiled. “We’d love to have you over again, sometime soon.”

Brian promised he’d take Aziraphale up on that, finished his own cocoa, and bid them goodbye, ruffling Lysander’s hair on the way out. The children started to wander out of the kitchen, until only Aziraphale and Athaliah were left. As Aziraphale collected empty mugs from the floor, he asked, “Did you have a good time?”

“I did.” Athaliah tilted her head thoughtfully, took a last sip of her cocoa, and passed the empty mug to her father. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought.”

“I’m glad.” Aziraphale turned on the tap to start washing them, and Athaliah wandered into the living room, where Crowley was sprawled on the sofa, the tv flickering, the volume low. He caught sight on her and patted the space beside him, and Athaliah hauled herself up next to him, snuggling into his side.

Crowley wrapped an arm around her. “Hey, kiddo. Want me to restart the episode?”

“That’s alright,” Athaliah said, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t tired, but sleep was nice anyway. She felt lips against her forehead, and she leaned into her dad’s touch. His hand stroked comfortingly against her shoulder. Athaliah hadn’t needed sleep for almost a month, and likely never would again, but the rhythmic movement and the low chatter from the television lured her under anyway.

She slept soundly.

[1] Or, conversely, the best, most wonderful, most exciting thing you have ever encountered, although at a month old, this tends to be less the case.

[2] Although it took three tries to do so, and the second nearly brought both boys toppling down with her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema has some bad news.

There’s a funny habit the universe has of surprising people. There’s ineffability, of course, and all that unknowable, unexplainable-ness that makes it up, but even ineffability, to a degree, can be predictable. The Rebellion had been, for many angels, somewhat predictable, and the subsequent Fall, the Garden, the Apocalypse, and all those events in between that warranted a capital letter. The surprise, at least for Crowley and Aziraphale, had been their meeting, their falling in love, Aziraphale’s heat and the children that had come from it. They were pleasant surprises on the whole, but surprises nonetheless. Therefore, if asked, Crowley and Aziraphale would probably have said that they liked surprises, although Crowley might have added the caveat that it was only true so long as they were pleasant surprises.

This was not that.

Crowley gaped at Anathema. “They’re doing _what now?_”

Anathema, on her part, managed to look considerably less panicked. “It might be nothing,” she told him. “Lay lines are sources of power of all kinds.”

“But you said something was happening to them,” Aziraphale put in. He had a teacup in his hand – the last of Anathema’s plastic ones, and in spite of the solemnness of their meeting she was quite pleased to now have a full set of china – but he wasn’t actually drinking from it.

Anathema nodded. “It’s like they’re charging themselves up. I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why I asked you to come.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Adam put in, brow furrowed. He’d been feeling a little left out.

They were in the kitchen of Jasmine Cottage, while Damian and Newt entertained the children in the yard. With spring right around the corner, the snow had begun to disappear, and although it was still rather cold out, the first signs of new life had begun to perk up in the garden. That was assuming tiny feet did not trample it first. Dog, who had decided he liked the colucumbra even more now than when Aziraphale had been pregnant with them, yipped excitedly at their heels, and had bowled over Phinehas more than once in his excitement.

“It could be nothing,” Anathema said again, although she sounded less convinced the second time. “It’s not like they’re moving, like when the world was ending. They’re staying put. Just…glowing, sort of. Like there’s a power surge somewhere.”

“But you can’t tell the origin?” Aziraphale surmised.

Anathema shook her head. “Could be anything. Heaven, Hell. Could be alien, for all I know.”

“Unlikely,” Aziraphale murmured absently, and Adam, who had perked up at the word ‘alien,’ looked disappointed again. Aziraphale continued, “I admit, I’m less familiar with lay lines than I ought to be, but surely there’s a way to determine the kind of energy they’re emitting?”

“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me. You’re the angel. And demon,” she added as an afterthought, looking at Crowley. “If it is Heaven or Hell, it might mean something big.”

“Another apocalypse?” Adam asked. “We took care of the old one just fine. Don’t see why another one could be a problem.”

Crowley winced at the flippant tone. The last apocalypse might have been averted, but only just, and it hadn’t exactly been a pleasant time for him or Aziraphale. Quite the opposite. He took a deep breath. “The kid’s right. We shouldn’t get riled up before we know that there’s a problem.” Aziraphale gave him a look, one which said that Crowley wasn’t fooling him; he was a great deal more riled up than his words suggested.

Anathema looked relieved. She relaxed back in her chair a little. “Exactly,” she said. “Nothing wrong with being cautious. It really might be nothing.”

It was the third time she’d said it. Crowley’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t all that superstitious – it wasn’t a particularly demonic thing to be – but even he had to admit that it felt a bit like jinxing it. He cleared his throat and shared another look with Aziraphale. “I guess we’d better take a look, then. I don’t suppose these lay lines are running through your garden, are they?”

“It’s a short hike,” Anathema promised, and Aziraphale’s face twitched. Crowley resisted the urge to grin; neither of them were much for exercise, but Aziraphale approached it with particular dismay.

They went into the garden. For the most part, activity ceased as the door opened, which meant that Damian, Percival, Ephraim, and Isidora looked up from where they were building an army of miniscule snowmen with the remaining scrapings of snow. Ophelia and Phinehas looked up from where they had dogpiled Newt, Dog still jumping excitedly around them, and Lysander sat up from the faint imprint of snow angels he was constructing. From her seat on the front step, Athaliah cocked her head. “What’s going on?”

Aziraphale smiled reassuringly. “We’re just going on a bit of a hike with Miss Anathema and Adam. We won’t be gone long.”

“I wanna go!” Phinehas immediately protested, rolling to his feet.

Aziraphale hesitated. “We’re going to go look at lay lines,” he said. “I’m not sure you’ll find it interesting.”

Phinehas pouted, but Percival cocked his head. “I’ve been reading about lay lines,” he said. “Can I come?”

“Well…”

“Let them come if they want,” Crowley told Aziraphale. Unspoken between them passed an idea, that the children didn’t have to know what the true purpose of the walk was. No sense in worrying them unless there really was a problem.

Aziraphale nodded and relented, “Alright. You may come if you like.” Percival smiled, and Phinehas whooped and darted out the front gate, Ophelia hot on his heels. Adam whistled for Dog, who trotted obediently to his side, and Newt got up with no small amount of relief.

Anathema kissed his cheek. “We’ll be back soon. Keep an eye on the others.”

“No problem,” Newt said. He’d been left with the easy ones.

He sat down on the front step next to Athaliah, and watched the little party leave the garden, gate swinging closed behind them as they rounded the bend in the lane. He felt a pair of eyes staring at him, and looked down at the little girl beside him. She was scrutinizing him with some intent. He coughed, his cheeks flushing under the onslaught. “Er, read any good books lately?”

“You and Miss Anathema aren’t married.”

“Er…no?”

“Did you know that, according to recent theories, after entering into marriage with a man, the average woman’s depression level increases, and her life expectancy decreases?” There was a sharp, accusatory note underneath the words.

Newt gulped. Perhaps not the easy children, after all.

The woods were still snowy, more so than the road and the garden, although not by too much. It crunched underfoot as two adults, two supernatural entities, three colucumbra, and one dog made their way through the twists of trees. Adam had no trouble navigating, right down to the footholds. Hogback Wood was his place, after all, and even years after the childhood he’d spent in it, it fit like a glove. Aziraphale, on the other hand, had already broken through the ice of two small puddles and soaked his shoes.

Anathema led the way, more or less, with the less being Phinehas and Ophelia zipping and weaving in patterns between the trees, leaving looping tracks as they scampered ahead and returned to the group. Percival walked between Crowley and Aziraphale, and after a few minutes Crowley picked him up. Percival didn’t even complain about the rumpling of his tiny suit, and allowed his dad to carry him. He could feel the anxiety emanating off Crowley, even as the demon tried to suppress it, and it relaxed a little when he swung Percival up onto his shoulders, his hands wrapped securely around the colucumbra’s ankles. Percival got a grip in Crowley’s hair to help keep his balance, and contented himself to be given a ride.

Anathema guided them to a clearing, and drew from her skirts a few familiar instruments. The theodolite and pendulum were old now, but Anathema kept them in good shape, and while they didn’t look new, they also looked very well cared for. She glanced back at the group following her, specifically at Aziraphale, and gestured with the pendulum. “I don’t know if you need these to see lay lines…?”

Crowley set Percival down. Phinehas and Ophelia skidded to a halt beside him, clinging to his legs and peering around the clearing with interest at this new turn of events. Aziraphale hesitated, and then admitted, “I believe it might be best if you instructed me. I’m really not sure what I’d be looking for.” Under normal circumstances, an angel might have been able to detect lay lines without human tools, but Aziraphale was hardly an ordinary angel, and he’d been removed from a great deal of his powers for well over a year. Better to do it Anathema’s way, he thought, and not embarrass himself.

Anathema handed over the theodolite and pendulum, and knelt down to the ground. Aziraphale winced as he did the same, more of the snow seeping into his trousers legs and soaking them through. He might not have felt the cold, but it didn’t make being damp any more pleasant. He listened attentively as Anathema showed him how to set up the instruments, trading off with her as together they adjusted them to reveal the lay lines, while Adam and the children looked on. Crowley was man enough – well, demon enough – to admit that he was paying less attention to the magic and more to Aziraphale’s arse, which was hiked in the air as he lay along the ground, and which the angel’s trousers were doing their own sort of magic too. Namely the kind that left Crowley flustered and tongue-tied.

Phinehas and Ophelia decided they’d had enough of adults playing with boring toys and took off again. Crowley had just enough sense of mind to call after them, “Don’t go too far!” He wasn’t sure they heard (they certainly didn’t acknowledge him), but this area of the wood was fairly level and sparsely populated with trees, so even if they went a bit farther than Crowley would have liked, they still would have been within sight.

Percival, on the other hand, stayed right where he was. He was listening to Anathema’s instructions as raptly as Aziraphale was, and every so often he edged a step closer to his father and godmother, working up the courage to ask for a look through the theodolite himself.

For Aziraphale, it was difficult to see through. The theodolite warped the image of the earth, bending and refracting it around them. It was initially hazy around the edges with unfocused magical energy, the crystals on it swaying as the tool was adjusted and readjusted, making a soft clinking sound in the chilly air. But gradually, the image began to take shape, and Aziraphale’s breath caught. Anathema had said the lay lines were glowing, that it looked like they might be charging up for something. This was not inaccurate, but it was merely a crude description of what Aziraphale saw.

Beacons of light arched up from the ground, as if creation itself were bleeding through the Earth. They stretched high and wavering, up into the sky in massive arcs, dancing in coloured patterns. Aziraphale had witnessed lay lines before, but they had never looked anything like this.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured.

Just for a moment, Anathema smiled. “It is, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale peered through the theodolite again, and took another, more careful look. Crowley hovered nervously. “What is it, angel?”

Aziraphale traced the lines of light, watching the colour changes, the crackling, and although the beauty of the sight did not change, the longer he looked the less he appreciated it, his stomach sinking and his chest tightening. He shuddered and sat up.

“Can I look?” Percival asked, eyes wide.

Aziraphale nodded shakily, with a nod to Anathema that she might help him. She gave him a startled but understanding look, drawing her godson close and murmuring to him as he peered through the instrument. Aziraphale stood, and drew Crowley a few steps away. Adam joined them.

“That bad?” Crowley couldn’t keep the note of fear from his voice. It was a rare occurrence that he saw Aziraphale so unsettled. The angel was very pale, and there was a slight tremor to his body that could not be blamed on the cold.

“It’s celestial energy,” Aziraphale murmured. “Angelic.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s no mistaking it.”

“Maybe it’s just a coincidence?” Adam offered, although he sounded doubtful. “There’s not any Hell…energy, is there?”

“Not that I can detect.”

“Then maybe it’s just got to do with this new…” Adam waved a vague hand in Aziraphale’s direction. The angel winced. Adam had the decency to look embarrassed. “If baby angels are being born, then maybe…”

“Maybe,” Aziraphale echoed. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Wouldn’t we have noticed it before?”

“It’s not like we were looking for it.” There was a note of desperate humour to Crowley’s voice, a slight up pitch that had Aziraphale flinching. “Maybe Adam’s right. Maybe that’s all it is.”

“I suppose it’s possible.” It was clear from Aziraphale’s voice that he didn’t believe that in the slightest. “Still. I can’t help _feeling_-“

“Father?” Percival interjected.

The three turned to look at him. The colucumbra had sat up, away from the theodolite, and was frowning at it. Then he turned to Aziraphale. “Something’s wrong,” he said slowly, “isn’t it?”

“Ah…” Aziraphale exchanged desperate looks with Crowley. “I wouldn’t say _that_-“

“The ley lines look wrong,” Percival insisted. “I’ve been reading about them; they’re too big and too bright. And they look like you.”

“Like…like me?”

Percival nodded. “That’s Heaven, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale gave up the pretence. “I believe so, yes.”

“And that’s a lot of energy.”

“It is.”

“What could make that?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale admitted. “It’s possible, I suppose…that is, it’s unlikely you and the others are the _only _ethereal children born. It could be other angels giving birth.”

Percival’s eyes widened. “But not to colucumbra,” he said. “Just to baby angels.”

“Ah, yes. Possibly.”

Percival frowned again. He studied Aziraphale for a moment, then Crowley, and then glanced at the other two adults. “You’re worried,” he said succinctly. “You think it’s wrong too.”

“Percy-“ Crowley began, and then stopped. He knelt, holding out his hands, and Percival allowed himself to be picked up again and set against Crowley’s hip. “Come on,” he said, jerking his head back the way they had come. “Let’s talk about this back at the cottage.”

“But…” Anathema cut herself off, about to say something about weird energy signatures and observation, and realized there was no need. Besides, Jasmine Cottage was better warded than the middle of the woods. She might not have been an angel or a demon, but even Anathema could feel a chill creeping into her bones that had nothing to do with the weather. She nodded.

“Phin! Lee Lee! Time to go!” Crowley called. There was no response, but a vicious crunching of feet, thundering louder until the pair reappeared, snow-covered and pink-cheeked, breathing hard as they skidded to a stop in front of their parents.

“Do we have to go?” Ophelia asked brightly. “We’re having fun!”

“I’m afraid so,” Aziraphale said, and the gravity of his tone had even Phinehas’s smile fading. He held out his hands, and Phinehas and Ophelia took one each. Aziraphale squeezed gently. “We’re going back.”

Without the running and shouting, the tread back through the woods was eerily silent, amplified by the anxiety bouncing off Crowley and Aziraphale in waves. Neither Adam nor Anathema could radiate emotions the same way, but they were not immune to its effects. The children shivered. They had seen their parents worried before, but never like this.

Newt might have been relieved to see the return of his partner and their friends – while Damian and the children continued to build their tiny snowman army, Athaliah had continued her heavy implication of distrust in his ability to provide for Anathema’s future happiness, and it was a bit much to take from a child – except that as they approached, he could see the looks on their faces. Suddenly, even Athaliah’s suspicion seemed tolerable by comparison. He stood up, prompting a frown from her, until she followed his gaze. Her eyes went wide, and she stood too. The movement caused the other three to pause, and then abandon the snowmen, and Damian followed them, so that by the time Anathema was opening the garden gate, the six who had remained behind were all standing by the front steps, waiting.

Crowley set Percival down, but kept ahold of his hand. “Inside,” he told them, and nobody questioned it. The door to Jasmine Cottage closed behind them with an ominous thunk. Nonsensically, knowing it would not help, Anathema locked it behind her, and then turned to the crowded room.

“Aziraphale?” she asked softly.

Aziraphale looked around, at the ashen face of his husband and the worry in his friends’ eyes. He looked at his children, who stared back, uncertainty radiating from them in waves. His voice stuck in his throat. “Something’s happened,” he managed after a minute. The words choked him. “We, ah, aren’t sure what it is.”

“But it’s bad?” Isidora’s voice wavered.

“We…we don’t know,” Aziraphale admitted. He looked helplessly at Crowley. “It has to do with Heaven.”

“Have they found us?” Ephraim’s voice, naturally very high, had pitched up nearly a full octave, and it made Crowley flinch.

“Not yet,” he said quickly. Probably not, anyway. If Heaven had found their children, it was almost certain that they would have retaliated by now. “But they may be planning something.”

Lysander hesitated, and then asked, “If we don’t know, why are we worried? Couldn’t it be okay?”

The question hung in the room. Crowley and Aziraphale sorely wished they could agree, that they could scoop up their children in hugs and promise them that, while it was important to be cautious, there really was no need for concern, and that everything would be alright in the end.

“I think it’s time,” Aziraphale said after a minute of crushing, smothering silence, “that we tell you about the apocalypse.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is hatched.

Silence hung over the room like a shroud, dead and grey. There was no movement, save for the occasional shifting from foot to foot. Aziraphale leaned back against Crowley’s shoulder, his body suddenly too heavy to support on his own, and Crowley wrapped his arms around the angel’s waist, holding him tight.

“That’s not at all how it sounded the first time,” Lysander said quietly.

“We didn’t want to worry you,” Aziraphale told him.

Athaliah had her lower lip sucked between her teeth. Beside her, Ephraim trembled and clung to his sister. “Will they kill us?” she asked eventually. Her voice was flat and even, devoid of emotion in a way that sank heavy into the pit of her parents’ stomachs.

“We don’t know,” Aziraphale admitted. “They might make an example of you. They’ve done it for us before, or tried to. Or they might try to use your power. We don’t know. But I cannot imagine that they will be kind.”

“Can’t we fight them?” For once, Phinehas sounded unsure.

“Yeah!” Ophelia chimed in, a little more hopeful than her brother. “If we’re so powerful-“

“It’s not that simple,” Crowley cut in gently. “There are scores of them, legions, and only seven of you.” He glanced at Aziraphale, and then back at their children. “Your father and I will fight to protect you, no matter what, but nine supernatural entities against the host of Heaven just…the numbers don’t add up. If it comes to a fight of strength, we will lose.”

Aziraphale winced at the bluntness, but he couldn’t deny Crowley’s point. He longed for Crowley’s optimism, his surety that, in the end, everything would be fine. It was harder to come by, these days.

Anathema hesitated, lifting her head. She’d been staring at the floor quite intently, as if cataloguing the scuffs in the wood. Now she tentatively asked, “Did Agnes say anything?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “I don’t know. Possibly. I’d have to review my notes.”

“We shouldn’t panic,” Newt said. The most surprising bit was that he, unlike most of the room, did not _sound _panicked. This was not because he wasn’t – indeed, Newt could panic with the best of them, and in this case most certainly was – but he had surveyed the room and realized that at least one of them ought to sound like they had a grip on the situation, if only to help calm the others. He cleared his throat. “I mean, we still don’t know that the lay line issue is a bad thing. It could be a coincidence.” He ignored the look Crowley gave him; the demon didn’t believe in coincidences. “And even if it’s not, even if something bad is about to happen, we have a head start. Check…check Agnes’s book. See if there are answers.” He turned to Aziraphale. “You’re an angel. You know Heaven. There has to be a way for you to figure out what they’re doing.”

“I…it doesn’t really work like that…”

“Hang on, angel,” Crowley interjected. Aziraphale looked at him, and Crowley continued, “He might have a point. We know Heaven wants you, bad. And last they knew, you were still-“ He broke off, glancing at the children, and then finished, “not pregnant.” Geniuses or not, Crowley was not about to discuss Aziraphale’s heat with his children in the room. “Maybe there’s a way to contact them? To find out what they’re planning?”

“I will not put our family at risk! If I contact Heaven, they’ll know where we are!”

“Not if you do it from the bookshop,” Crowley argued. “You could call your friends, ask to borrow it for the afternoon. Heaven already knows about it, and if I was there-“

“We can’t know that will work!” Aziraphale pulled out of Crowley’s hold, shaking his head desperately. “For all we know, the hosts of Heaven will sweep down and pluck me where I stand! Even you couldn’t protect me from that.”

“I could.”

Everyone looked at Adam. He appeared to be thinking very hard. He looked Aziraphale in the eye. “I’ve got enough power, I think. I wouldn’t let them take you. And if they really want you, they might let their guard down.”

“It’s too risky!”

“Angel,” Crowley murmured. He brushed his hand down Aziraphale’s arm, trailing two fingers over the back of his hand in a careful touch. “I don’t like it either. But we don’t have a lot of choices. It’s this, or tremble in the dark. If we know what’s going on, we might stand half a chance.” He turned to Adam. “You really think you can keep him safe?”

Adam nodded solemnly. “I won’t let them hurt him.”

Aziraphale hesitated a moment longer. There was a look on Crowley’s face that he was familiar with. Frightened…but determined. It was a look that, in Aziraphale’s experience, had meant that eventually, everything would turn out alright, because when Crowley put his mind to something, God (or Satan) help whoever stood in his way.

“Alright,” he said. He straightened up, and Crowley caught just a glimpse of angelic righteousness flash across his face. It was as if the whole room was suddenly shining with light. “Adam and I will go to the bookshop. Anathema?”

She straightened up, like a soldier suddenly addressed by a general. “Yes?”

“I’d like you and Crowley to go over my notes. See if Agnes said anything about lay lines, and what they might mean.”

“I can do that.”

“Newton.”

There was something about Aziraphale’s tone that reminded him, nostalgically, of Shadwell. “Yes, sir?”

Aziraphale paused, and his face softened. His eyes swept across his children, who still looked uncertain in the face of the adults’ decisions. “Take them home and keep them safe,” he said.

Newt softened too. “I can do that,” he murmured.

Damian had been quiet, but now spoke up. “Should we contact Pepper and the others?”

Aziraphale nodded. “They deserve to know. Tell them they needn’t get involved if they don’t want to, but that if they’re willing, we could use their help.”

A smile was spreading across Crowley’s face in spite of himself. “My angel,” he teased. “Commanding armies again.”

“Not armies,” Aziraphale corrected. “We’re not soldiers.” He glanced around the room. “We’re a family. And we will protect our own.”

***

“I’ll be back soon,” Aziraphale murmured, kissing Crowley gently. He could feel Crowley shaking under his hands where they cupped the demon’s cheeks. He rested his forehead against Crowley’s. “Everything will be alright, my dear. I promise.”

“You can’t promise me that.” Crowley didn’t bother to hide the tremble in his voice. He couldn’t. “Are we sure-“

“This was your idea,” Aziraphale reminded him. He kissed Crowley’s forehead, then the tip of his nose, then each cheek; slow, drawn-out kisses that lingered tenderly, reassuring. “It was a good idea. And Adam will be there. He’ll keep me safe.”

“Come home.” Crowley pulled Aziraphale into a fierce hug, squeezing him so hard that any human’s ribs would have cracked. “You hear me? For me and the kids. Come home to us.”

“I will endeavour to do so.” Aziraphale pulled free of Crowley’s embrace with some reluctance. “I love you.”

“I love you too, angel.”

Aziraphale turned towards the door, where Adam stood silently, his head turned to the side to give them some semblance of privacy for their goodbye. He looked up as Aziraphale approached, and the angel nodded once. Adam opened the door.

A wail pieced the air, and Aziraphale nearly stumbled as tiny bodies wrapped around his legs, holding fast. “You can’t go,” Isidora sobbed. “What if you don’t come back?”

Ophelia’s lip quivered, but her eyes were defiant. “You can’t leave.”

Aziraphale looked down at them, then to where Ephraim lingered in the living room doorway, clinging to the wood, his blue eyes huge and frightened. The others stood beside him, watching with equal concern. Aziraphale knelt down, dislodging his daughters from his legs and beckoning the other children over. He swept them into a hug, closing his eyes and relishing in the warmth, the magic radiating off of them. His little miracles.

“I love you,” he said. “All of you, with every fibre of my being. I have to leave, but I will do everything in my power to come home to you.” He stroked Isidora’s curls, ruffled Ophelia’s spiky hair. “I love you,” he said again. He stood up. “Now, please. Be good for your dad and for our friends. No fighting.” He gave Phinehas and Ophelia and indulgent smile, and they offered shy, slightly embarrassed ones back. He nudged the lot of them gently in Crowley’s direction. “Go on, now.”

It took a moment, but eventually they clustered around Crowley instead, watching as Aziraphale followed Adam out, closing the door behind him. They all stared at it for a moment, eight pairs of eyes watching, eight hearts beating just a little too fast.

“He’ll come home,” Crowley said. His voice was thick, and it caught in his throat. “He will.” He shook his head and cleared his throat, forcing a cheerfulness into his voice that he did not feel. “Alright. I have to join Miss Anathema in your father’s study. Newt and Damian are here if you need anything, and Miss Pepper and Miss Elizabeth will be along soon. If Wensleydale calls, bring it to me, and the same goes for Brian.” He shooed them into the living room, exchanging a look with Newt over their heads. Then he glanced at the door one last time and, taking a shaky breath that did nothing to calm himself, headed up the stairs.

Outside, Aziraphale got into Adam’s car with an equally shaky breath. From the driver’s seat, Adam watched him. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Aziraphale leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Just go, please.”

The gates opened and then shut behind them. Aziraphale dared not look back.

The ride into SoHo was made longer by the silence, the anxious trepidation of what they were about to attempt. Images flashed through Aziraphale’s mind; not quite thoughts, not the way humans would understand thought, and faster than any human could possibly think. But the subject was something humans would understand perfectly.

He was thinking about Crowley, and about his children. About what might happen to him, if they failed, and what might happen to his family if he did not return. He was thinking about Gabriel, about the angel they had tried to tempt him with, who did not hold a candle to Crowley, but who in another world Aziraphale might have been brood mare too, birthing and raising a legion of pure angel children to swell Heaven’s ranks, rather than his little miracles. And he was thinking about God. His Father, in a sense, and who had made him a father as well. And he was thinking that it wasn’t fair, that he’d known it wasn’t fair, but it _wasn’t fair_, to bless him with life and then threaten to take it away.

Adam did not ask what Aziraphale was thinking about. It was written all across his face.

***

Anathema buried her head in her arms with a groan, squeezing her eyes shut against the headache building in her temples. She wanted to kick the table, but resisted. Perched on the armchair across the room, notecards fanned out in a semicircle around him, Crowley looked up.

“I can’t do it,” Anathema said. “It’s…it’s nonsense! It’s riddles and hints and…and…stupid codes that don’t make any sense!” She thumped the table with her palm. “Agnes, why did you have to be such a bitch?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. He stretched out from the chair, hopping around the scattered notecards and up onto the desk, propping one foot on top of it and resting his forearm against his knee. “Remind me who you are, again?”

Anathema groaned. Her head fell back against her arms. “I’m Agnes Nutter’s descendent,” she mumbled. “I’m the inheritor of her legacy, her prophecies and her knowledge.”

“No.”

Anathema blinked. She lifted her head and frowned at Crowley. He cocked his head, yellow eyes sharp. “You’re not here as Agnes Nutter’s descendent,” he said. “I don’t give a rat’s arse whose descendent you are, or whatever legacy you think you inherited. You’re here, book girl, because you are Aziraphale’s friend. _My friend_. And you are clever, and you are just as much a clever, nutty bitch as Agnes, and Aziraphale is _counting on us_ to figure this out.” He lifted an eyebrow, and his gaze sharpened even farther. “So, tell me. Who are you?”

She stared at him for one long moment, incredulous. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face. It was a smile that would not have been out of place on Agnes Nutter’s. “I’m Anathema Device,” she said. “I helped stop the apocalypse and befriended an angel. And I’m going to help save his family.”

“Attagirl,” Crowley said. He jumped from the desk and back to his chair. Anathema grabbed her stack of cards and pulled them towards her. She fanned them out across the desk and began to read.

***

The bookshop was empty when they arrived. Aziraphale’s acquaintances in the rare book trade had been more than happy to let him have it for an afternoon, and as he let himself in with an old key, he allowed himself to smile at the familiarity of the space. Some things had been moved around, and the collection was different from his, but there was still something about stepping into an old bookshop, one that had once been his, that put Aziraphale at ease. He looked at Adam, who set down the case he was carrying and opened it. Aziraphale drew out the paint, pushing aside a rug in order to repaint the communication circle while Adam began arranging the candles.

“So how does this work?” he asked the angel. “If it’s just paint and candles, how is it magic?”

Aziraphale paused mid-brushstroke. “You know, I’m really not sure. There’s the incantation, of course, words having power and all, but I’ve never really questioned why. It just…works.”

“Huh.”

As Aziraphale began on the sigils, nerves began to flutter in his stomach, nerves he had tried to avoid allowing himself to feel. He had spent a great deal of time preparing a script, trying to decide what he would tell Heaven, and how he might respond to them, depending on what they did. He still wasn’t entirely satisfied with it, and now the words were beginning to slip from his mind like water through a sieve, puddling around him until his chest tightened, as if he were drowning in the rising panic. Aziraphale did not need to breath, but he could not stop himself now, his hands shaking, dripping paint and scattering flecks across the floor.

“Aziraphale?”

He looked up. Adam had finished with the candles and was watching him. Some of the tension eased, leaking from his chest like a punctured tire, until he came to rest on the ground. “I’m alright,” he said. “Lost my head for a minute, but I’m alright now.”

Adam nodded, and Aziraphale went back to the circle, finishing it with practiced strokes. He sat back. “You should go now.”

“But-“

“The backroom,” Aziraphale interrupted. “Keep the door open, keep watch. With any luck, they won’t be able to detect you. But if they see you at all, there may be more trouble.”

“Alright,” Adam agreed. He started over that way, and then paused and looked back. “You sure you’re okay?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened them again. The smile he gave Adam was weak, but it was genuine. “I’m sure.” He had to be. He had to believe it. If he believed it, maybe it would be true.

On the whole, angels only have slightly more imagination than demons. For this specific angel, his imagination could rival Crowley’s, but it was the strength of his belief that wavered. Whereas, for all his surface doubts, Crowley at heart fundamentally believed in things, believed in them with a rock-solid foundation that had only ever been shaken by two beings in the entire universe, Aziraphale was the one who doubted deeply. Doubt is the downfall of imagination, and right now, it was why Aziraphale was not okay, why no amount of saying he was okay would make it so.

Aziraphale lit the candles. He said the correct passage to activate the circle. And in his heart, deep and buried under layers of reassurances and forced optimism, Aziraphale doubted.

In a bookshop that was no longer his home, one angel waited for judgement.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get some answers...kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have...some bad news. This is the last chapter I have written for this fic right now. School has been crazy, and I've had limited motivation to keep going on this one. I love all your comments, and I promise I'm going to keep trying to finish this one, but in the meantime sit tight. Consider checking out my other ongoing fic, The Sometimes Wife, in the meantime. That one is finished, so weekly updates are guaranteed. 
> 
> Hope you like this chapter. Try not to hate me too much at the end.

“Nothing,” Crowley muttered. “Absolutely nothing.”

“There can’t be nothing,” Anathema said. “Agnes predicted _everything_. Why would she miss something this big?”

Crowley sat back in the armchair, legs crossed. “Maybe it really is nothing?”

Anathema gave him a look, eyebrows raised. Crowley conceded her point with a nod. He sighed and rubbed at his temples. “Come on, Agnes. Little help here?”

***

Adam fought the urge to yawn. It had been hours, hours of staring through the cracked door to the backroom, keeping an eye on Aziraphale. Even the angel had sat down after a while, and the look on his face grew more uncertain with every passing minute. Adam propped his chin on his hand, his eyelids drooping. This time, he did yawn.

Aziraphale fidgeted. He’d done the incantation correctly, he was certain. Everything about it was right. The candles were burning down to nubs, wax dripping to the floor in clumps. He’d been put on hold by Heaven before, but never for quite so long.

The bell tinkled. Aziraphale cursed himself for forgetting to lock the front door, and called over his shoulder, “We’re closed!”

“Hello, Aziraphale. What’s the human expression? Long time, no see?”

Aziraphale whirled, nearly kicking over a candle. His eyes grew wide. “Gabriel.”

The archangel grinned at him. “In the flesh.” He patted his body down, and gave a shrug, smile still firmly affixed to his face. “And it’s still a nice one, if I do say so myself.” He slid his hands into his pockets and advanced on Aziraphale. “So. It’s been awhile. I see you aren’t in heat.”

“Ah, about that-“

“We could have been perfect, you know. Mmm.” Gabriel wet his lips, eyebrows wiggling. “You would have been perfect. Bearing my children…you’re built for it.” He laughed. “Maybe better you’re not in heat. If you were, I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself taking you right here, filling you up with new soldiers for Heaven.”

Aziraphale winced. “Gabriel-“

“But you’re not in heat. Which means you, Aziraphale, have been very naughty indeed.”

“Well-“

“I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to come back here, you know. Much less _call us_. Of course, you did shack up with a demon, so clearly I’ve overestimated you. Tell me, Aziraphale. Did he satisfy you?”

“I-“

Aziraphale had been steadily backing up, even as Gabriel kept moving towards him, and he stumbled to a stop, his back hitting the wall. Gabriel stopped too, a scant foot away. He reached out, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and flinched as Gabriel ran an appropriating hand down his body, stroking over his stomach, although mercifully no lower. “Where’s the brood, Aziraphale?”

“Th-the…?”

Gabriel’s smile dropped, and his expression turned cold as he snarled, “The abominations, Aziraphale. Your filthy half-breeds. Heaven knows you must have had them. We saw the power surge, and we, unlike you, are not stupid. And you’re going to tell us where they are.”

“And…and if I don’t?” He wished he sounded defiant. He did not.

Gabriel rocked back on his heels. A faux-nonchalance replaced the snarl, but with no less ice. He shrugged. “If you don’t…well, we can’t let _Hell_ get their hands on the little monsters. And Earth doesn’t really _need _London, now does it? There are scores of us, Aziraphale, and more every day. With every angel born, our power grows. Heaven grows. And it would be nothing, _nothing_, to wipe your precious city off the map.”

***

“I think this might be something?” Anathema brought a card closer to her face, as if studying it down her nose could make the meaning clearer. “It’s about the dove – that’s Aziraphale – facing the…I think it’s supposed to say ‘horn-blower’?”

Crowley’s head shot up. His heart stopped, namely because he had forgotten to need it. “What does it say?”

“Just something about the Aziraphale facing…someone, and not…” Anathema squinted.

“Not what?” Crowley pressed. If he had remembered his pulse, it would have been frantic. “Not what, Anathema?”

She mouthed the words silently, then repeated them aloud, “and he shall not fall, but the horn shall wake the fallen.”

“_Fuck_.”

“What does-“

“Gabriel. Fucking Gabriel.” Crowley allowed himself the brief satisfaction of imagining the archangel doused in hellfire. “He’s going to Aziraphale, and whatever Aziraphale does or…or doesn’t do, the holy bastard is going to get Hell in on it. _Fuck_.”

Anathema, who had never heard Crowley swear so much in such short succession, did not need the profanity to understand the severity of the issue. She got it, loud and clear.

There was a knock on the door, and Crowley spat, “What is it?”

Whoever was on the other side paused, and then slowly pushed it open. Percival looked concerned, and more than a bit nervous, but he simply held out the phone. “It’s Wensleydale,” he said softly. “He wants to talk to you.”

***

“Hang on.” Adam pushed open the door, stepping through it and folding his arms. Aziraphale stared at him, eyes wide, and tried to convey without words that _he most certainly should not be showing himself to the archangel who had him cornered. _Adam ignored him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Gabriel’s smiled widened. “Antichrist. Look at you, all grown up.”

“If you really have the power to make London disappear or…or die, or whatever, and you just didn’t want Hell to get the colucumbra, you’d have done it by now.” Adam tilted his head. “Which means, you either don’t have the power, or you want something else, or both.”

“Maybe I wanted to see if Aziraphale would do the right thing first.”

Aziraphale looked between Adam and Gabriel. They both had their arms crossed, stances defiant. “No.”

They turned to look at him. Aziraphale shook his head. “You wouldn’t come here, in person, to threaten me if you wanted me to ‘do the right thing.’ You wouldn’t have asked where they are. You want them, don’t you?”

Gabriel gave an incredulous laugh. It looked a bit like he was backpeddling, and at a rate the metaphorical bicycle really couldn’t take. “Well, of course we want them. That kind of power? We can _use _that. I mean, sure, we’d have to do something about that…disgusting demon part, but they’d be _fine_, Aziraphale. We’re Heaven. We’re the good guys, remember?” He held out his hands. “Come back to us. Bring us the, what did you call them?” He pointed at Adam and then snapped his fingers. “Colucumbra. Bring us the colucumbra and come back to us.” He gave a little dismissive wave. “You’d have to, you know, renounce the demon, of course, send him back to the fiery depths from whence he came, blah blah blah, but the point it, Aziraphale, that you don’t have to live with this mistake.” He took Aziraphale’s hands, tight enough that Aziraphale could not pull away. “You could be an angel again.”

“I still am an angel.”

“Barely. Playing house with a demon? Playing father to abominations? We can _fix them_, Aziraphale, purify them in Heaven. And when we do, we won’t have to worry about Hell _or _Earth. We’ll have all the power we need.”

“What about your children?” Just for a moment, Aziraphale wavered. “You have their power. We can see it, affecting the Earth.”

“They’re strong,” Gabriel allowed. “But yours…yours are stronger. _Think about it, _Aziraphale. You’ve been playing down here long enough.” His hands loosened, convinced in Aziraphale’s faltering.

Aziraphale pulled away. His face set. Adam had rarely seen Aziraphale so determined. Certainly he’d never seen him so furious. “They don’t need to be fixed.”

“What?”

Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to advance, and Gabriel who backed away in surprise. “They are not monsters, not abominations, and they do not need to be _purified. _There is nothing you could do to them that could fix them, because they are perfect the way they are.”

Gabriel gaped. “But-“

“Heaven will not get their hands on my children. Nor will I renounce my husband. And I certainly have no intention of joining you. I may have followed blindly once, but I will never do so again.”

“But Aziraphale, think of all we could offer you!”

“There is nothing you could offer me that I want.” Aziraphale was edging Gabriel, slowly but surely towards the circle. “You tried to destroy the world. You attempted to destroy me. I will not allow you do destroy my family.”

Gabriel barked out a laugh, incredulous. “We’re your family, Aziraphale.”

“You aren’t. And you never were.”

Gabriel opened his mouth and then closed it. He jabbed a finger at Aziraphale. “We’ll have them, or we’ll destroy them. Either way, you _will _regret this.”

Aziraphale said nothing. He simply lifted his chin. Adam came up to flank him, eyebrows raised, daring Gabriel to make a move. The archangel looked between them, considered, and then thought better of it. “This isn’t over, Aziraphale. Next time you meet an angel, it won’t be nearly as pleasant as this.” He straightened his coat and, with as much dignity as he could muster, turned on his heel, deftly avoiding the circle, and stalked from the shop, slamming the door behind him hard enough for the building to shake.

Aziraphale caught a candle as it fell, and set it upright again. He turned to Adam, who watched as the fight deflated from the angel. “Oh dear,” Aziraphale murmured. “This isn’t good at all.”

***

Crowley set down the phone and took a deep breath. Anathema watched him. “Good news or bad news?”

“Bit of both.” Crowley turned to her. “The good news is, Wensleydale thinks we have time. The lay lines are only the first sign of Heaven’s growing power. He’s been doing some reading of his own. You have to take theology texts with a grain of salt, of course, but he thinks that, as Heaven’s power grows, they’ll start to influence the Earth, even without intent. Things are being thrown out of balance. That’s going to have an effect on the natural order. But it’ll take time to build, so that’s more time for us.”

“And the bad news?”

Crowley closed his eyes. “The bad news is that there’s no way Heaven won’t take advantage of it. Whether they want the children or not, and I can’t believe they won’t, Heaven will use this as a way to come back out on top. Which means the rest of us are screwed. It’s only a matter of time.”

Anathema winced. “Maybe the prophecy we were looking at was the wrong one. Maybe we have more time than we think.”

Crowley opened his mouth to reply and was cut off by the phone ringing. He frowned and answered. “Hello?”

“It’s me. I’m alright.”

“Aziraphale!” Crowley’s chest loosened just a fraction. “Hang on, Anathema’s here. I’m putting you on speakerphone.” He hit the button and set the phone on the desk. “What happened?”

“Gabriel showed up. He knows about the children. He threatened to destroy London if we didn’t tell him where they were.”

“He was bluffing,” Adam put in, his voice a little more indistinct.

“For now,” Aziraphale amended. “But Crowley, he really wanted them for Heaven. And I don’t believe we’ll get away with only a warning next time.”

“Come home,” Crowley told him. “We’re…” He exchanged looks with Anathema. “We think we might have something to help. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can. Are the children alright?”

Crowley huffed a laugh of relief. “Yeah. Yeah, they’re fine. Still a little shaken, but they’re tough kids, and they’re being so good.”

“Good. I love you.”

“Love you too, angel.” Crowley waited until he heard the click, and then pushed the phone away. He took another breath. “Okay. I doubt we’ll make much more headway here until they get back.”

“Downstairs?”

“Downstairs.”

Together they rose, and headed back to the others.

***

Aziraphale hung up the phone and turned to Adam, who was finishing painting over the circle. With a wave of his hand, Aziraphale miracled it dry, and the rug slid neatly into place. Heaven knew where he was, after all. No sense leaving the place untidy. “Let’s go home,” he said, and Adam nodded in agreement.

They left the shop, locking the door behind them, and headed for the car, if not entirely relieved, at least a little more relaxed than they had been on the way in.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have been. Lurking in the shadows, a figure watched them leave. A figure who had been waiting, watching the shop. He’d been posted there under the assumption that the angel would very likely be back, and when he was, something interesting might happen.

Something interesting had happened. And he’d heard every word.

Hastur smiled. Hell would be very interested in this, indeed.


End file.
